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AN   INTRODUCTION 


TO  THE  STUDY  OF 


AMERICAN     LITERATURE 


BY 

BRANDER   MATTHEWS,   A.M.,   LL.B. 

PROFESSOR  OF  LITERATURE  IN  COLUMBIA  COLLEGE      ' 


NEW  YORK- :•  CINCINNATI-:.  CHICAGO 

AMERICAN    BOOK    COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1896.  BY 
AMERICAN  BOOK  COMPANY. 


INT.  TO  AM.  LIT. 
W.  P.  4 


Co  mg  Jrintti  anfc  Colleague 
NICHOLAS   MURRAY   BUTLER 

DEAN  OF  THE  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
IN   COLUMBIA   COLLEGE 


OK  THB 

UNIVERSITY 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

THIS  book  is  intended  as  an  introduction  to  the  study 
of  American  literature.  Although  the  chapters  on  the 
separate  authors  are  wholly  distinct,  they  have  been  so 
planned  that  each  of  them  prepares  the  way  for  its  suc- 
cessor, and  that  all  of  them  together  outline  the  changing 
circumstances  under  which  American  literature  has  devel- 
oped. An  attempt  has  been  made  to  show  how  each  of 
the  chief  American  authors  influenced  his  time,  and  how 
he  in  turn  was  influenced  by  it ;  and  also  to  indicate  how 
each  of  them  was  related  to  the  others,  both  personally 
and  artistically. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  fact  that  the  student  needs  to  have 
his  attention  centered  on  vital  points,  all  dates  and  all 
proper  names,  and  all  titles  of  books  not  absolutely  essen- 
tial, have  been  rigorously  omitted.  Interest  has  thus  been 
concentrated  on  the  literary  career  of  each  of  the  greater 
writers  and  on  their  practice  of  the  literary  art,  in  the  hope 
and  expectation  that  the  student  will  be  encouraged  and 
stimulated  to  read  their  works  for  his  own  pleasure. 
After  the  consideration  of  these  more  important  authors, 
one  by  one,  the  writers  of  less  consequence  have  been 
discussed  briefly  in  a  single  chapter ;  and  in  like  manner 
a  single  chapter  only  has  been  devoted  to  a  summary  con- 
sideration of  the  condition  of  our  literature  at  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

5 


6  PREFATORY  NOTE 

To  arouse  the  student's  interest  in  the  authors  as  actual 
men,  the  illustrations  chosen  have  been  confined  to  por- 
traits and  views,  and  to  facsimiles  of  manuscripts.  To 
enable  him  to  see  for  himself  the  successive  stages  of 
the  growth  of  American  literature,  and  to  let  him  dis- 
cover how  the  authors  sometimes  came  one  after  an- 
other and  sometimes  worked  side  by  side,  there  has  been 
appended  also  a  chronological  table  of  the  chief  dates 
in  our  literary  history. 

As  mere  text-book  instruction  can  never  be  an  adequate 
substitute  for  the  student's  own  acquaintance  with  the 
actual  works  of  the  authors  discussed,  there  have  been 
annexed  to  every  chapter  bibliographical  notes  calling 
attention  to  the  editions  most  suitable  for  the  student's 
reading,  and  also  to  the  best  biographies  and  to  a  few  of 
the  most  suggestive  criticisms. 

The  thanks  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers  are 
due  to  Miss  Alice  M.  Longfellow,  Professor  Norton,  Mr. 
H.  G.  O.  Blake,  Mr.  Edward  W.  Emerson,  Mr.  Walter  R. 
Benjamin,  and  Gen.  J.  G.  Wilson,  for  kindly  furnishing 
the  original  manuscripts  herewith  reproduced ;  to  Mr.  F. 
D.  Stone,  for  aid  in  making  a  facsimile  of  Franklin's 
" Almanac";  and  to  Dr.  Chas.  H.  J.  Douglas  of  the 
Brooklyn  Boys'  High  School,  for  preparing  the  most  of 
the  questions  appended  to  every  chapter  —  questions  in- 
tended to  be  suggestive  only  and  by  no  means  exhaustive. 

B.  M. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFATORY  NOTE 5 

I  INTRODUCTION        .        .        .        .        „        ...  9 

II      THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 15 

III  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 21 

IV  WASHINGTON  IRVING 40 

V     JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 56 

VI      WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 69 

VII  FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK  AND  JOSEPH  RODMAN  DRAKE  83 

VIII      RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 93 

IX      NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 110 

X  HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW       .        .        .        .124 

XI      JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 138 

XII      EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 155 

XIII  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 170 

XIV  DAVID  HENRY  THOREAU 184 

XV  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL       .        .        .        .        .        .  194 

XVI     FRANCIS  PARKMAN 210 

XVII      OTHER  WRITERS 220 

XVIII  THE  END  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY   .        .        .  229 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE       .        .        .        .        .        ,       ,        .  235 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Portrait  of  Cotton  Mather     .     .     .     .     18 
Portrait  of  Jonathan  Edwards  ...     19 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Portrait 21 

Birthplace 23 

Facsimiles  of  Almanac     .     .     .     .    26,  27 
Facsimile  Manuscript 34>  35 

WASHINGTON  IRVING 

Portrait 40 

Facsimile  Manuscript 46,  47 

Sunnyside 53 

JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 

Portrait 56 

Otsego  Hall 57 

Facsimile  Manuscript 61 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 

Portrait 69 

Birthplace 71 

Facsimile  Manuscript 74 

Residence,  Roslyn,  L.I 81 

FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK 

Portrait 83 

Facsimile  Manuscript 85 

Residence,  Guilford,  Conn 91 

JOSEPH  RODMAN  DRAKE 

Portrait 87 

Facsimile  Manuscript 88 

Residence,  New  York  City  ....     90 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

Portrait 93 

Residence,  Concord,  Mass 97 

Facsimile  Manuscript .     .     .     .      100,101 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

Portrait no 

Birthplace in 

The  Old  Manse 114 

Facsimile  Manuscript       .     .     .     .     .119 
The  Wayside 120 

HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW 

Portrait 124 

Birthplace 125 

Residence,  Cambridge,  Mass.  .     .     .    127 
Facsimile  Manuscript 133 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 

Portrait 138 

Birthplace 109 

Residence,  Amesbury,  Mass.    .     .     .  145 

Facsimile  Manuscript 149 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

Portrait 155 

Facsimile  Manuscript       .     .     .      162,  163 
Cottage,  Fordham,  N.  Y 167 

\OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

Portrait 170 

Birthplace 172 

Facsimile  Manuscript 175 

Summer  Residence,  Beverly  Farms, 

Mass 178 

Facsimile  Manuscript 181 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

Portrait 184 

Residence,  Concord,  Mass.       .     .     .    185 

Hut  on  Walden  Pond 186 

Facsimile  Manuscript      .     .     .     190,  191 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 

Portrait 194 

Elmwood,  Cambridge,  Mass.    .     .     .    198 
Facsimile  Manuscript 207 

FRANCIS  PARKMAN 

Portrait 210 

Residence,  Boston,  Mass 214 

Facsimile  Manuscript 217 

OTHER  WRITERS 
PORTRAITS  OF: 

Alexander  Hamilton 221 

Daniel  Webster 221 

George  Bancroft 222 

William  H.  Prescott 223 

Bayard  Taylor 224 

Walt  Whitman 225 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 227 

William  D.  Howells 231 

Edmund  C.  Stedman 232 

Edward  Eggleston  .......  233 

Samuel  Clemens  (Mark  Twain)    .     .  233 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


I     INTRODUCTION 

SINCE  the  invention  of  the  art  of  writing,  the  story  of 
the  past  is  no  longer  kept  alive  by  word  of  mouth  only, 
the  father  telling  the  son,  and  the  son,  in  turn,  telling  the 
grandson.  It  has  been  set  down  in  black  and  white,  by 
means  of  letters,  so  that  we  to-day  can  read  the  record  of 
the  feelings,  the  thoughts,  and  the  acts  of  the  people  of 
two  thousand  years  ago.  And  we,  in  our  turn,  are  setting 
down  our  sayings  and  our  doings,  so  that  those  who  come 
after  us  will  be  able  to  understand  what  we  felt,  what  we 
thought,  and  what  we  did.  When  this  record  is  so  skill- 
fully made  as  to  give  pleasure  to  the  reader,  it  is  called 
literature. 

Literature,  then,  is  the  reflection  and  the  reproduction 
of  the  life  of  the  people.  It  has  existed  ever  since  the 
invention  of  the  art  of  writing,  which  enabled  men  to  keep 
an  account  of  the  things  they  wished  to  remember.  The 
literature  of  the  past  helps  us  to  understand  the  lives  of 
the  peoples  of  the  past.  Greek  literature  tells  us  how  the 
Greeks  lived,  and  how  they  felt,  what  they  thought,  and 
what  they  did.  Through  Latin  literature  we  get  to  know 
the  ways  of  the  old  Romans  ;  and,  through  Hebrew  litera- 


10  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

ture,  we  are  enabled  to  understand  the  character  of  the 
Jewish  race. 

In  like  manner,  English  literature  tells  us  about  the  life 
of  the  peoples  who  speak  the  English  language.  English 
literature  is  the  record  of  the  thoughts  and  the  feelings 
and  the  acts  of  the  great  English-speaking  race.  This 
record  extends  a  long  way  back  into  the  past ;  but  it  is 
also  being  made  to-day  and  every  day ;  and  it  bids  fair  to 
be  made  for  many  centuries  to  come.  Greek  literature  is 
dead,  and  Hebrew  literature  is  dead  ;  but  English  literature 
is  alive  now.  It  is  the  continuous  account  of  the  life  of 
those  who  speak  the  English  language,  in  the  past,  in  the 
present,  and  in  the  future.  Here  in  the  United  States, 
above  the  Great  Lakes  in  Canada,  across  the  Atlantic  in 
Great  Britain,  afar  on  the  other  side  of  the  Pacific  in  Aus- 
tralia and  in  India,  there  are  now  men  and  women  keeping 
the  record  of  their  feelings,  their  thoughts,  and  their  acts. 

All  that  these  men  and  these  women  write,  if  only  it  be 
so  skillfully  presented  as  to  give  pleasure  to  the  reader, 
becomes  at  once  a  part  of  English  literature.  It  is  no 
matter  where  the  authors  live,  whether  in  New  York  or  in 
Montreal,  in  London,  in  Melbourne  or  in  Calcutta,  what 
they  write  in  the  English  language  belongs  to  English 
literature.  It  is  no  matter  what  the  nationality  of  the 
author  may  be,  whether  he  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
or  a  subject  of  the  British  crown ;  if  he  uses  the  English 
language  he  contributes  to  English  literature.  This  must 
be  remembered  always  —  that  the  record  of  the  life  of  the 
peoples  using  the  English  language  is  English  literature. 

As  literature  is  a  reflection  and  a  reproduction  of  the  life 
of  the  peoples  speaking  the  language  in  which  it  is  written, 
this  literature  is  likely  to  be  strong  and  great  in  propor- 
tion as  the  peoples  who  speak  the  language  are  strong  and 


INTRODUCTION  1 1 

great.  English  literature  is  therefore  likely  to  grow,  as  it 
is  the'  record  of  the  life  of  the  English-speaking  race,  and 
as  this  race  is  steadily  spreading  abroad  over  the  globe. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  in  the  time  of  Chaucer  less 
than  three  millions  of  men  and  women  spoke  English,  and 
in  the  time  of  Shakspere  less  than  seven  millions  ;  and 
all  these  lived  in  the  British  Isles.  But  after  a  while  the 
British  Isles  became  too  small  for  those  who  spoke  English. 
Men  and  women  went  east  and  west  out  of  England,  and 
settled  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.  They  grew  in 
numbers  rapidly. 

Another  estimate  shows  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  probably  about  twenty  millions  of  men 
and  women  spoke  English,  while  about  thirty-one  millions 
spoke  French,  and  about  thirty  millions  spoke  German. 
Now,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  believed 
that  about  fifty  millions  speak  French,  and  about  seventy 
millions  speak  German,  while  more  than  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  millions  speak  English.  Our  language  is  spread- 
ing far  more  rapidly  than  any  other ;  and  the  prophecy 
has  been  made  that  at  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century 
the  number  of  those  who  use  the  English  language  will 
be  fully  a  thousand  millions. 

While  those  who  speak  German  are  still  mostly  in  Ger- 
many, and  those  who  speak  French  mostly  in  France,  the 
most  of  those  who  speak  English  are  no  longer  in  England, 
for  the  total  population  of  all  the  British  Isles  is  now 
less  than  forty  millions.  The  largest  single  body  of  the 
English-speaking  race  has  not  even  a  political  connection 
with  England,  for  English  is  the  language  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States,  who  now  number  more  than 
sixty  millions.  As  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
vigor  and  energy  and  are  in  no  wise  inferior  to  the  people  of 


i2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Great  Britain,  it  seems  likely  that  hereafter  the  Americans, 
rather  than  the  British,  will  be  recognized  as  the  chief  of 
the  English-speaking  peoples. 

As  long  as  the  English-speaking  race  dwelt  only  in  the 
British  Isles,  English  literature  had  to  do  only  with  British 
subjects.  Now  that  the  English-speaking  race, has  settled 
itself  also  in  America,  and  now  more  especially  that  the 
chief  body  of  this  race  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  British 
Isles  but  in  the  United  States,  it  is  needful  to  have  terms 
to  distinguish  that  portion  of  English  literature  which  is 
written  in  the  British  Isles  from  that  which  is  written 
in  the  United  States. 

Until  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  unity  of  the 
English  race  was  unbroken  ;  and  until  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  stream  of  English  literature  had 
but  a  single  channel.  Since  we  in  the  United  States  began 
to  have  writers  of  our  own,  the  record  of  our  feelings,  of 
our  thoughts,  and  of  our  deeds  may  fairly  be  called  Ameri- 
can literature.  It  is  still  a  part  of  English  literature,  for 
it  is  written  in  the  English  language.  As  Canada  and  as 
Australia  are  growing  and  prospering,  there  can  be  said 
to  be  already  a  Canadian  literature  and  an  Australian 
literature.  And  to  distinguish  the  literature  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking race  who  continue  to  live  in  the  British  Isles 
from  the  literature  of  the  Americans  and  the  Canadians 
and  the  Australians,  perhaps  that  had  best  be  called 
British  literature. 

So,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  we  find  that 
English  literature,  one  in  the  past,  has  now  four  divisions, 
—  British,  American,  Canadian,  and  Australian.  Of  these, 
the  British  is  still  the  most  important,  having  the  most 
great  authors.  But  the  American  is  second  to  it,  and  is 
growing  sturdily  and  steadily.  The  English  literature  of 


INTRODUCTION  13 

the  past  is  as  much  our  glorious  heritage  as  it  is  that  of 
the  British.  It  belongs  to  us  as  it  belongs  to  them,  and 
we  have  an  equal  pride  in  this  splendid  possession. 

But  as  the  American  of  to-day  is  unlike  an  Englishman 
in  many  points  of  custom  and  of  taste,  so  American  litera- 
ture has  begun  to  differ  from  British  literature  in  many 
ways.  Literature  is  a  reflection  and  a  reproduction  of  life, 
and  as  life  in  the  United  States  is  more  and  more  unlike 
life  in  Great  Britain,  American  literature  must  needs 
become  more  and  more  unlike  British  literature.  We 
Americans,  for  the  most  part,  come  of  the  same  stock  as 
the  British  of  to-day,  but  we  have  lived,  for  many  genera- 
tions, in  another  land,  with  another  climate  and  under 
another  social  organization. 

For  more  than  a  century  now,  the  American  has  grown 
up  in  a  republic  free  from  feudal  influences,  without  caste 
and  class  distinctions,  with  public  schools  open  to  rich  and 
poor  alike.  All  these  things  cannot  but  have  had  their 
effect  upon  us.  We  believe  that  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween the  American  and  the  Englishman  —  although  it  is 
not  easy  to  declare  precisely  what  that  difference  may  be. 
We  believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Americanism  ; 
and  that  there  have  been  Americans  of  a  type  impossible 
elsewhere  in  the  world  —  impossible,  certainly,  in  Great 
Britain.  Washington  and  Franklin  were  typical  Ameri- 
cans, different  as  they  were ;  and  so  were  Emerson  and 
Lincoln,  Farragut  and  Lowell.  It  was  Lowell  who  found 
in  President  Hayes  "that  excellent  new  thing  we  call 
Americanism,  which  I  suppose  is  that  dignity  of  human 
nature  .  .  .  which  consists,  perhaps,  in  not  thinking  your- 
self either  better  or  worse  than  your  neighbors  by  reason 
of  any  artificial  distinction."  This  Americanism  has  left  its 
mark  on  the  writings  of  the  authors  of  the  United  States. 


14  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

It  is  perhaps  for  this  reason,  and  perhaps,  also,  because 
we  all  like  to  find  ourselves  in  the  books  we  read,  that 
American  writers  are  of  more  interest  to  us  here  in  the 
United  States  than  are  the  recent  writers  of  the  other 
great  branch  of  English  literature,  the  writers  now  living 
in  the  British  Isles.  British  literature  reproduces  for 
us  a  life  which  is  at  once  like  ours,  and  unlike  it.  Amer- 
ican literature  reproduces  for  us  our  own  life ;  it  records 
our  feelings,  our  thoughts,  and  our  deeds ;  it  enables  us 
to  see  ourselves  and  our  neighbors  as  we  really  are,  or 
at  least  as  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  ;  it  explains  us  to 
ourselves.  And  therefore,  even  if  American  literature, 
which  belongs  almost  wholly  to  the  nineteenth  century, 
were  inferior  in  quality  as  well  as  in  quantity  to  the 
British  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century,  yet  it  would 
be  of  more  importance  to  us  here  in  America.  To  learn 
how  it  came  into  being  and  who  its  founders  were  ought 
to  be  interesting  to  all  of  us. 

QUESTIONS. — What  is  literature?  Mention  several  historical  divi- 
sions of  the  subject. 

Trace  the  spread  of  the  English-speaking  race,  from  the  time  of 
Chaucer  to  the  present  day. 

How  has  English  literature  come  to  have  four  geographical  divisions  ? 

What  is  meant  by  British  literature  ? 

What  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  American  literature  ? 

NOTE.  —  There  are  two  primers  of  American  literature,  one  by  Miss  Watkins 
(American  Book  Company,  35  cents),  and  one  by  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson 
(Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  50  cents).  Prof.  Richardson  is  also  the  author  of  a 
more  elaborate  work  on  "American  Literature"  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  $3.50). 
Prof.  M.  C.  Tyler  has  written  a  history  of  "  American  Colonial  Literature,"  of  which 
4  vols.  have  now  been  published  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  $6).  Very  useful  is  Mr. 
Whitcomb's  "  Chronological  Outlines  of  American  Literature"  (Macmillan  &  Co., 
$1.25).  Most  comprehensive  is  the  "  Library  of  American  Literature,"  edited  by 
Mr.  Stedman  and  Miss  Hutchinson  (W.  R.  Benjamin,  n  vols.,  $33). 


II     THE    COLONIAL   PERIOD 

THE  English  settlements  in  North  America  began  at 
a  time  when  English  literature  had  just  reached  its  most 
glorious  period.  Shakspere  was  writing  his  plays  when 
Captain  John  Smith  first  explored  Chesapeake  Bay.  Milton 
was  born  the  year  before  Henry  Hudson  first  sailed  up  the 
noble  river  that  now  bears  his  name.  Bacon  published  his 
great  book  on  philosophical  and  scientific  method  only  a 
few  months  before  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  on  Plymouth 
Rock. 

The  men  who  left  England  for  conscience'  sake  were 
many  of  them  scholars  with  a  love  for  learning.  But  in 
this  fierce  new  land  in  which  they  sought  to  establish 
themselves,  they  had  no  time,  at  first,  to  do  anything  more 
than  defend  their  lives,  build  their  houses,  plant  their 
fields,  and  set  up  their  churches  and  their  schools.  They 
were  strong  men,  laboring  mightily,  and  laying  the  broad 
foundations  of  the  republic  we  live  under  to-day. 

What  they  wrote  then  had  always  an  immediate  object. 
They  set  down  in  black  and  white  their  compacts,  their 
laws,  and  their  own  important  doings.  They  described  the 
condition  of  affairs  in  the  colonies  to  the  kinsfolk  and  the 
friends  they  had  left  behind  in  the  mother  country.  They 
prepared  elaborate  treatises  in  which  they  set  forth  their 
own  vigorous  ideas  about  religion.  For  singing  songs  or  for 
telling  tales,  they  had  neither  leisure  nor  taste ;  so  we  find 
no  early  American  novelist  and  no  early  American  poet. 

15 


16  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

Perhaps  the  beginnings  of  American  literature  are  to 
be  sought  in  the  books  written  by  the  first  adventurers 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  an  account  of  the  strange  coun- 
tries in  which  they  had  traveled.  Of  these  adventurers, 
the  most  interesting  was  Captain  John  Smith.  He  was 
born  in  England  in  1579.  As  a  lad,  he  ran  away  to 
become  a  soldier,  and  saw  much  fighting  against  the 
Turks.  Taken  prisoner,  he  was  sold  for  a  slave,  but 
made  his  escape  and  went  back  to  England. 

In  1607  he  was  one  of  those  who  came  over  here  to 
found  a  colony  in  Virginia.  He  himself  records  his  being 
made  captive  by  the  Indians,  and  the  saving  of  his  life  by 
Pocahontas,  the  daughter  of  the  Indian  chief,  Powhatan. 
For  more  than  ten  years  Smith  kept  coming  to  America, 
and  exploring  the  bays  and  rivers  of  the  coast  from  Vir- 
ginia to  New  England.  He  published,  in  1608,  "  A  True 
Relation  of  such  Occurrences  and  Accidents  of  Note  as 
hath  Happened  in  Virginia,"  the  very  first  book  about  any 
of  the  English  settlements  in  North  America.  In  1624 
he  was  one  "of  the  authors  of  "  The  General  History  of 
Virginia,  New  England,  and  the  Summer  Isles."  The  last 
years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  England,  and  he  died  in 
London  in  1632. 

John  Smith  was  the  most  picturesque  figure  in  the  early 
history  of  America;  and  his  writings  are  like  him — bold, 
free,  highly  colored.  He  was  more  picturesque  than  any 
of  the  solid  scholars  and  the  stalwart  ministers  of  New 
England  whom  we  find  uniting  in  the  making  of  what  is 
now  known  as  the  "Bay  Psalm  Book."  This  was  the  first 
English  book  printed  in  America.  It  was  published  in 
1640.  Its  full  title  was  "  The  Whole  Book  of  Psalms  faith- 
fully Translated  into  English  Metre."  The  worthy  divines 
who  prepared  this  volume  were  not  born  poets ;  their 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD  I/ 

verses  are  halting  and  their  rimes  are  strained.  As  it 
has  been  said,  these  hymns  "  seem  to  have  been  ham- 
mered out  on  an  anvil,  by  blows  from  a  blacksmith's  sledge." 

Ten  years  later  another  volume  of  American  verse  was 
published,  not  in  Massachusetts  but  in  London.  It  was 
called  "The  Tenth  Muse  lately  Sprung  up  in  America," 
and  it  contained  poems  by  Mistress  Anne  Bradstreet. 
They  were  written  in  the  conventional  and  exaggerated 
manner  then  in  vogue  in  England,  an.,  they  reveal  on  her 
part  no  real  observation  of  the  new  country  in  which  she 
lived.  She  seems  not  to  have  seen  the  wide  difference 
between  the  skies  and  the  trees  and  the  flowers  and  .the 
birds  of  New  England  and  those  of  the  old  England  she 
had  left  as  a  bride.  She  was  born  in  1613  and  she  died  in 
1672.  Among  her  descendants,  alive  two  hundred  years 
after  her  own  death,  were  R.  H.  Dana,  the  author  of  "Two 
Years  before  the  Mast,"  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  the 
author  of  the  "Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table." 

After  Mistress  Bradstreet  the  New  England  writers  next 
to  be  picked  out  for  mention  here  are  the  Mathers.  There 
were  many  of  them,  and  most  of  them  wrote  abundantly. 
The  more  noteworthy  were  Increase  Mather,  born  in  1639 
and  dying  in  1723,  and  his  son,  Cotton  Mather,  born  in 
1663  and  dying  in  1728.  The  son  wrote  unceasingly  and 
he  was  well  equipped  for  authorship  by  deep  learning.  His 
own  library  was  by  far  the  largest  of  any  then  in  private 
hands  in  America.  It  was  said  that  "  no  native  of  his  coun- 
try had  read  so  much  and  retained  more  of  what  he  read." 

Yet  he  was  vain  personally  and  his  judgment  was  capri- 
cious. He  was  one  of  the  most  active  in  the  persecution 
of  the  alleged  witches  of  Salem  in  1692.  Three  years 
before  the  trials  of  these  unfortunate  creatures  he  had 
published  a  volume  on  "  Memorable  Providences  relating 


AMER.  LIT.  —  2 


i8 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


to  Witchcrafts."  Later  in  life  he  wrote  his  most  useful 
book,  "  Essays  to  do  Good,"  published  in  1710.  This  was 
the  volume  which  fell  into  Franklin's  hands  when  he  was 
a  boy  and  gave  him  such  a  turn  of  thinking  as  had  an 
abiding  influence  on  his  conduct  through  life. 

The  most  of  the  writing 
done  in  New  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century  had  to 
do  with  religion,  and  so  it 
was  also  in  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  It 
was  only  as  the  Revolution 
began  to  loom  up  on  the 
i  horizon  that  the  interests  of 
the  church  became  less  excit- 
ing than  the  interests  of  the 
state,  and  politics  succeeded 
religion  as  the  chief  topic  of 
the  publications  of  the  day. 
The  growth  of  the  colonies  in  population  and  in  resources 
was  to  give  them  the  strength  finally  to  break  the  bonds 
which  united  them  to  the  British  crown.  Schools  and  col- 
leges were  established  and  newspapers  were  started,  until 
at  last  there  was  no  one  of  the  little  cities  along  the  coast 
that  had  not  its  printing  press.  A  spirit  of  independence 
was  beginning  to  develop.  In  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century  there  were  Americans  who  thought  for 
themselves  and  who  wrote  out  boldly  what  they  thought. 

It  was  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  the  two  men  were  born  who  are  beyond  all  question 
the  two  greatest  American  authors  coming  to  maturity 
before  the  revolution.  These  two  men  were  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  Benjamin  Franklin.  They  were  products  of 


^ 


Cotton  Mather 


THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD  19 

the  American  soil  and  they  grew  up  under  American  con- 
ditions. They  were  the  first  native  Americans  able  to 
make  a  reputation  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  and  to 
hold  their  own  in  debate  with  the  best  men  of  Europe. 
Of  the  two,  Edwards  was  three  years  the  older,  and  for 
that  reason  he  may  be  considered  here  before  Franklin. 
It  is  not  to  be  questioned  that  Franklin  is  the  more 
important  of  the  two  because  of  his  services  to  the  coun- 
try as  a  whole  and  because  he  has  left  us  one  book,  at 
least,  which  is  still  read,  his  delightful  "Autobiography." 

Jonathan   Edwards  was  born  in   1703   in   Connecticut. 
When  only  twelve   years   old   he  entered   Yale   College, 
being   graduated   before  he   was  seventeen.     He  studied 
for  the  ministry  and  was   ordained. 
While  a  student  at  Yale,  and  after- 
ward when  a  tutor   in   the   college, 
he  paid  attention  to  natural  science, 
having  the  same  wholesome  curiosity 
that  characterized  Franklin.    He  even 
planned  a  book  on  this  subject,  and 
gatheied  many  notes,  the   result    of 
his  own  observations  and  experiments. 
He  studied  electricity,  having  ideas 
about  it  long  in  advance  of  his  time, 
and    almost    anticipating    Franklin's          Jonathan  Edwards 
discoveries.     He  also  turned  his  acute  and  searching  mind 
towards   astronomy.     But   theology  was  at  all  times  his 
chief  study,  and  it  is  by  his  writings  on  religious  subjects 
that  he  made  his  mark  in  the  world. 

He  was  settled  as  minister  of  a  parish  at  the  age  of 
twenty-four,  being  then  married.  He  brought  up  his 
family  amid  many  privations.  His  health  was  poor  but 
his  spirit  was  always  strong.  He  spent  thirteen  hours  a 


20  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

day  in  his  study.  Even  when  he  rode  or  walked  he  kept 
on  thinking;  and  when  from  home  he  had  a  habit  of 
pinning  bits  of  paper  to  his  clothes,  one  for  every  thought 
he  wished  to  write  down  on  his  return,  and  he  would 
sometimes  get  back  with  so  many  of  these  scraps  that 
they  fluttered  all  about  him. 

His  great  work  on  the  "  Freedom  of  the  Will "  was 
published  in  1754.  It  is  now  but  little  read,  for  we  no 
longer  see  the  subject  from  Edwards's  point  of  view. 
But  it  remains  a  monument  of  intellectual  effort.  To  this 
day  it  is  probably  the  most  direct  and  subtle  treatise  on 
a  philosophical  theme  written  by  any  American.  It  justi- 
fies the  assertion  of  more  than  one  European  critic  that 
no  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  surpasses  it  in  the 
vigor  of  its  logic  or  in  the  sharpness  of  its  argument. 
Jonathan  Edwards  died  in  1758,  a  few  days  after  he  had 
been  made  president  of  Princeton  College. 

QUESTIONS.  — What  kind  of  men  were  the  earliest  English  settlers 
in  America  ?  What  did  they  put  down  in  writing  ? 

Give  some  account  of  the  most  interesting  writer  among  the  early 
adventurers  to  America. 

Describe  two  examples  of  early  colonial  verse  —  one  religious,  the 
other  secular. 

What  was  Cotton  Mather^  connection  with  the  Salem  witchcraft 
trials  ? 

What  changes  took  place  in  the  general  spirit  of  American  literature 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century? 

Give  an  account  of  the  first  native  American  writer  who  made  a 
reputation  in  Europe. 

NOTE. —  There  are  brief  biographies  of  Capt.  John  Smith  by  Mr.  C.  D.  Warner 
(H.  Holt  &  Co.,  $i),  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  by  Prof.  A.  V.  G.  Allen  (Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  #1.25),  and  of  Cotton  Mather  by  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell  (Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co.,  $i).  See  also  the  chapters  on  this  period  in  the  histories  of  American 
literature  by  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  and  Prof.  M.  C.  Tyler. 


Ill    BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  Queen 
Anne  sat  on  the  throne  of  Great  Britain,  there  were  ten 
British  colonies  strung  along  the  Atlantic  coast  of  North 
America.  These  colonies  were  various  in  origin  and  ill- 
disposed  one  to  another.  They  were  young,  feeble,  and 
jealous ;  their  total  population  was  less  than  four  hundred 
thousand.  In  the  colony  of  Massachusetts,  and  in  the 
town  of  Boston,  on  January  17,  1706,  was  born  Benjamin 
Franklin,  who  'died  in  the  state  of  Pennsylvania,  and  in 
the  city  of  Philadelphia,  on  April  17,  1790. 


22  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

In  the  eighty-four  years  of  his  life,  Benjamin  Franklin 
saw  the  ten  colonies  increase  to  thirteen ;  he  saw  them 
come  together  for  defense  against  the  common  enemy ; 
he  saw  them  throw  off  their  allegiance  to  the  British 
crown  ;  he  saw  them  form  themselves  into  these  United 
States  ;  he  saw  the  population  increase  to  nearly  four  mil- 
lions;  he  saw  the  beginning  of  the  movement  across  the 
Alleghanies  which  was  to  give  us  the  boundless  West  and 
all  our  possibilities  of  expansion.  And  in  the  bringing 
about  of  this  growth,  this  union,  this  independence,  this 
development,  the  share  of  Benjamin  Franklin  was  greater 
than  the  share  of  any  other  man. 

With  Washington,  Franklin  divided  the  honor  of  being 
the  American  who  had  most  fame  abroad  and  most  venera- 
tion at  home.  He  was  the  only  man  (so  one  of  his  biogra- 
phers reminds  us)  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence, the  Treaty  of  Alliance  with  France,  the  Treaty  of 
Peace  with  England,  and  the  Constitution  under  which  we 
still  live.  But  not  only  had  he  helped  to  make  the  nation 
—  he  had  done  more  than  any  one  else  to  form  the  indi- 
vidual. If  the  typical  American  is  shrewd,  industrious, 
and  thrifty,  it  is  due  in  a  measure  to  the  counsel  and  to 
the  example  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  In  "  Poor  Richard's 
Almanack"  he  summed  up  wisely,  and  he  set  forth  sharply, 
the  rules  of  conduct  on  which  Americans  have  trained 
themselves  now  for  a  century  and  a  half.  Upon  his  coun- 
trymen the  influence  of  Franklin's  preaching  and  of  his 
practice  was  wide,  deep,  and  abiding.  He  was  the  first 
great  American  —  for  Washington  was  twenty-six  years 
younger. 

Benjamin  was  the  youngest  son  of  Josiah  Franklin,  who 
had  come  to  America  in  1682.  His  mother  was  a  daugh- 
ter of  Peter  Folger,  one  of  the  earliest  colonists.  His 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 


father  was  a  soap  boiler  and  tallow  chandler ;  and  as  a  boy 
of  ten    Benjamin  was   employed    in  cutting  wick  for  the 
candles,  filling  the  dipping  molds,  tending  shop,  and  going 
on  errands.     He  did  not  like  the  trade,  and  wanted  to  be  a 
sailor.     So    his   father   used  to  take  him   to   walk  about 
Boston  among  the  joiners,  bricklayers,  turners,  and  other 
mechanics,    that    the 
boy    might    discover 
his      inclination      for 
some  trade  on  land. 

Franklin  tells  us 
that  from  a  child  he 
was  fond  of  reading, 
and  laid  out  on  books 
all  the  little  money 
that  came  into  his 
hands.  Among  the 
books  he  read  as  a 
boy  were  the  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress"  and 
Mather's  "  Essays  to 
do  Good";  and  this 
last  gave  him  such  a 
turn  of  thinking  that  it  influenced  his  conduct  through  life 
and  made  him  always  "set  a  greater  value  on  the  character 
of  a  doer  of  good  than  on  any  other  kind  of  reputation." 

It  was  this  bookish  inclination  which  determined  his 
father  to  make  a  printer  of  him,  and  at  the  age  of  twelve 
he  was  apprenticed  to  his  brother  James.  There  was  then 
but  one  newspaper  in  America  —  the  Boston  News-Letter, 
issued  once  a  week.  A  second  journal,  the  Boston  Gazette, 
was  started  in  1719.  At  first  James  Franklin  was  its 
printer,  but  when  it  passed  into  other  hands  he  began  a 


Franklin's  Birthplace 


24  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

paper  of  his  own  —  the  New  England  Conrant,  more  lively 
than  the  earlier  journals,  and  more  enterprising.  As  Ben- 
jamin set  up  the  type  for  his  brother's  paper,  it  struck  him 
that  perhaps  he  could  write  as  well  as  some  of  the  contrib- 
utors. He  was  then  a  boy  of  sixteen,  and  already  had  he 
been  training  himself  as  a  writer.  He  had  studied  Locke 
"On  the  Human  Understanding,"  Xenophon's  "Memora- 
bilia (Memorable  Things)  of  Socrates,"  and  a  volume  of  the 
"Spectator"  of  Addison  and  Steele.  This  last  he  chose 
as  his  model,  mastering  its  methods,  taking  apart  the 
essays  to  see  how  they  were  put  together,  and  so  finding 
out  the  secret  of  its  simple  style,  its  easy  wit,  its  homely 
humor.  His  first  attempts  at  composition  were  put  in  at 
night  under  the  door  of  the  printing  house ;  they  were 
approved  and  printed ;  and  after  a  while  he  declared  their 
authorship. 

For  a  mild  joke  on  the  government  James  Franklin  was 
forbidden  to  publish  the  New  England  Courant,  so  he  can- 
celed his  brother's  apprenticeship  and  made  over  the  paper 
to  Benjamin.  But  the  indentures  were  secretly  renewed, 
and  the  elder  brother  treated  the  younger  with  increasing 
harshness,  giving  him  an  aversion  to  arbitrary  power  which 
stuck  to  him  through  life. 

At  length  the  boy  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and  he  left 
his  brother's  shop.  James  was  able  to  prevent  him  from 
getting  work  elsewhere  in  Boston,  so  Benjamin  slipped  off 
on  a  sloop  to  New  York.  Failing  of  employment  there, 
he  went  on  to  Philadelphia,  being  then  seventeen.  He 
arrived  there  with  only  a  "  Dutch  dollar "  in  his  pocket. 
Weary  and  hungry,  he  asked  at  a  baker's  for  a  three- 
penny-worth of  bread,  and,  to  his  surprise,  he  received 
three  great  puffy  rolls.  He  walked  off  with  a  roll  under 
each  arm  and  eating  the  third  ;  and  he  passed  the  house  of 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN  25 

a  Mr.  Read,  whose  daughter  stood  at  the  door,  thinking 
the  young  stranger  made  a  most  awkward,  ridiculous 
appearance,  and  little  surmising  that  she  was  one  day  to 
be  his  wife. 

Franklin  worked  at  his  trade  in  Philadelphia  for  nearly 
two  years.  In  1724  he  crossed  the  ocean  for  the  first  time 
to  buy  type  and  a  press,  but  was  disappointed  of  a  letter 
of  credit  Governor  Keith  had  promised  him.  He  found 
employment  as  a  printer  in  London,  and  he  came  near 
starting  a  swimming  school;  but  in  1726,  after  two  years' 
absence,  he  returned  to  Philadelphia,  and  there  he  made 
his  home  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  soon  set  up  for  him- 
self as  a  printer,  and,  as  he  was  more  skillful  than  his  rivals 
and  more  industrious,  he  prospered,  getting  the  govern- 
ment printing  and  buying  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette. 

He  married  Deborah  Read ;  and  he  made  many  friends, 
the  closest  of  whom  he  formed  into  a  club  called  the 
"Junto,"  devoted  to  inquiry  and  debate.  At  his  suggestion 
the  members  of  this  club  kept  their  books  in  common  at 
the  clubroom  for  a  while ;  and  out  of  this  grew  the  first 
circulating  library  in  America  —  the  germ  of  the  American 
public  library  system.  And  in  1732  he  issued  the  first 
number  of  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanack,"  which  continued 
to  appear  every  year  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

It  was  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanack  "  which  first  made 
Franklin  famous,  and  it  was  out  of  the  mouth  of  Poor 
Richard  that  Franklin  spoke  most  effectively  to  his  fellow- 
countrymen.  He  had  noticed  that  the  almanac  was  often 
the  only  book  in  many  houses,  and  he  therefore  "filled 
all  the  little  spaces  that  occurred  between  the  remarkable 
days  in  the  calendar  with  proverbial  sentences,  chiefly 
such  as  inculcated  industry  and  frugality  as  the  means  of 
procuring  wealth,  and  thereby  securing  virtue ;  it  being 


Poor  RICHARD  improved  : 


BEING    AN 

ALMANACK 

AND 

EPHEMER1S 

O  F    T  H  E 

MOTIONS  of  the  SUN  and  MOON; 

THE    TRUE 

PLACES  and  ASPECTS  of  the  PLANETS  ; 

THE 
RISING  and  SETTING  of  the    SUN; 

AND    THE 

Rifmg,  Setting  and  Southing  of  the  Moon, 

FOR     THE 

YEAR  of  our  LORD  1758: 
Being  the  Second  aftet,  LEAP-YEAR. 

Containing  aKo, 

The  Lunations,.  Conjun&ions,   Ecl/pfes,  Judg 
ment  of  the  Weather,   Riling  and  Setting  of  the 
Planets,  Length  of  Days  and  Nights,  Fairs,  Courts, 
Roads,  &c .    Together  with  ufeful  Tables,  chro- 
nological Obfervations,  and  entertaining  Remarks. 

Fitted  to  the  Latitude  of  Forty  Degrees,  and  a  Meridian  of  near 
five  Hours  Weft  from  London  j  but  may,  with  out  fen  fible  Erior, 
ferve  all  the  NORTHERN  COLONIES. 

ty.RJCHJRD    SOUNDER  St    Philora. 

PHILADELPHIA 
*  Printed  and  Sold  by  B.  J?RANK.LIN,  and  D.  HALL. 


26 


AUGUST  hath  xxxi  Days. 


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fays,   "Tis  fooli/h  to  lay  out  Mo 
'naPurcbafe  of  'Repentance '\  and  yet  tl 
folly  is  praftifed  every  Day  at  Vendues, 
for  want  of  minding  the   Almanack.! 
Vife  Men,  as  Poor  Dick  fays,  learn  fy\ 
>tbers  Harms,  F#oh  fcarcety  by  tbfir  c<wn ; 
)ut,    Felix   quern  faciunt  ahena  Perieuk 
Vautuin.    Many  a  one,  for  the  Sake  of 
Finery  on  the  Back,  have  gone  with  a 
liungry  Belly,  and  half  ftaVved  their  Fa- 
M".esj  Silks  and  Satti/is,  Scarlet  and  Pel-\ 
,  as  Poor  Richard  fays,  put  'out  the\ 
\Kitcben  Fire.    Thefe  are  not  the  Nectffa-. 
-ies  of  Life  j  they  can  fcareely  be  catlec 
he  Convenienciest  .and  yet  only  becai 
"  tey  look  pretty,   how  many  "want 
ttvthem.  The  artificial  Wants  of  Man-| 
ind  thus  become' more  numerous  thaj 
he  natural  -,  and,  as  Poor  Dick  fays,  Fo 
ne  poor  Perfon,  there  are  an  hundred  in- 
igent.    By  thefe,  and  other  Extrava- 
janoies,  the  Genteel  are  reduced  to  Po- 
[verty,    and  forced   to  borrow  of  tbofej 
they  formerly  defpifed,  but  who 
\ilndujlry  and  frz/^A^have  main- 
their  Standing}  in  which  Cafe  it 
appears  plainly,  that  a  Ploughman  on  bis 
Legs  is  higher  than  a  Gentleman  on  bis 
\KneeSi   as  Poor  Richard  fays.     Perhaps, 
they 'have  had  a  fraall  Eflate  left  them. 
D  whioh    '' 


27 


28  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

more  difficult  for  a  man  in  want  to  act  always  honestly, 
as,  to  use  here  one  of  these  proverbs,  'It  is  hard  for  an 
empty  sack  to  stand  upright.' '  By  these  pithy,  pregnant 
sayings,  carrying  their  moral  home,  fit  to  be  pondered  in 
the  long  winter  evenings,  Franklin  taught  Americans  to 
be  thrifty,  to  be  forehanded,  and  to  look  for  help  from 
themselves  only. 

The  rest  of  the  almanac  was  also  interesting,  especially 
the  playful  prefaces ;  for  Franklin  was  the  first  of  Ameri- 
can humorists,  and  to  this  day  he  has  not  been  surpassed 
in  his  own  line.  The  best  of  the  proverbs  —  not  original, 
all  of  them,  but  all  sent  forth  freshened  and  sharpened 
by  Franklin's  shrewd  wit  —  he  "assembled  and  formed 
into  a  connected  discourse,  prefixed  to  the  almanac  of 
1757,  as  the  harangue  of  a  wise  old  man  to  the  people 
attending  an  auction." 

Thus  compacted,  the  scattered  counsels  sped  up  and 
down  the  Atlantic  coast,  being  copied  into  all  the  news- 
papers. The  wise  "Speech  of  Father  Abraham"  also 
traveled  across  the  ocean  and  was  reprinted  in  England 
as  a  broadside  to  be  stuck  up  in  houses  for  daily  guidance ; 
it  was  twice  translated  into  French  —  being  probably  the 
first  essay  by  an  American  author  which  had  a  circulation 
outside  the  domains  of  our  language.  It  has  been  issued 
since  in  German,  Spanish,  Italian,  Russian,  Dutch,  Portu- 
guese, Gaelic,  and  Greek.  Without  question  it  is  what  it 
has  been  called — "the  most  famous  piece  of  literature 
the  colonies  produced." 

No  man  had  ever  preached  a  doctrine  which  more  skill- 
fully showed  how  to  get  the  best  for  yourself;  and  no 
man  ever  showed  himself  more  ready  than  Franklin  to 
do  things  for  others.  He  invented  an  open  stove  to  give 
more  heat  with  less  wood,  but  he  refused  to  take  out  a 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN  29 

patent  for  it,  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  serve  his  neigh- 
bors ;  and  this  invention  of  Franklin's  was  the  beginning 
of  the  great  American  stove  trade  of  to-day.  He  founded 
the  first  fire  company  in  Philadelphia,  and  so  made  a 
beginning  for  the  present  fire  departments.  He  procured 
the  reorganization  of  the  night  watch  and  the  payment  of 
the  watchmen,  thus  preparing  for  the  regular  police  force 
now  established.  He  started  a  Philosophical  Society  ;  and 
he  took  the  lead  in  setting  on  foot  an  academy  —  which 
still  survives  as  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

While  he  was  doing  things  for  others,  others  did  things 
for  him,  and  he  was  made  Clerk  of  the  General  Assembly 
in  1736,  and  Postmaster  of  Philadelphia  in  1737.  In  1750 
he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Assembly,  and  in  1753 
he  was  made  Postmaster-general  for  all  the  colonies.  In 
1748  he  had  retired  from  business,  having  so  fitted  his 
practice  to  his  preaching  that  he  had  gained  a  competency 
when  but  forty-two  years  old. 

The  leisure  thus  acquired  he  used  in  the  study  of 
electrical  science,  then  in  its  infancy.  He  soon  mastered 
all  that  was  known,  and  then  he  made  new  experiments 
with  his  wonted  ingenuity.  He  was  the  first  to  declare 
the  identity  of  electricity  and  lightning.  Using  a  wet 
string,  he  flew  a  kite  against  a  thunder  cloud,  and  drew  a 
spark  from  a  key  at  the  end  of  a  cord.  The  lightning  rod 
was  his  invention.  Of  his  investigations  and  experiments 
he  wrote  reports  that  were  printed  in  England  and  trans- 
lated in  France.  The  Royal  Society  voted  him  a  medal ; 
the  French  king  had  the  experiments  repeated  before  him ; 
and  both  Harvard  and  Yale  made  Franklin  a  Master  of 
Arts. 

But  Franklin  was  not  long  allowed  to  live  in  philosophic 
retirement.  •  When  the  French  War  broke  out  he  was 


30  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

appointed  one  of  the  commissioners  sent  by  Pennsylvania 
to  a  congress  of  the  colonies  held  at  Albany.  He  wrote 
a  pamphlet  which  aided  the  enlisting  of  troops  ;  and  by 
pledging  his  own  credit  he  helped  General  Braddock  to  get 
the  wagons  needed  for  the  unfortunate  expedition  against 
Fort  Duquesne.  He  drew  up  a  Plan  of  Union  on  which 
the  colonies  might  act  together,  and  thus  anticipated  the 
Continental  Congress  of  twenty  years  later. 

In  1757,  when  Pennsylvania  could  no  longer  bear  the 
interference  of  the  governor  appointed  by  the  proprietors, 
Franklin  was  sent  to  London  as  the  representative  of  his 
fellow-citizens.  It  was  more  than  thirty  years  since  he 
had  left  England,  a  journeyman  printer ;  and  now  he 
returned  to  it,  a  man  of  fifty,  the  foremost  citizen  of  Phila- 
delphia, the  author  of  "  Father  Abraham's  Speech,"  and 
the  discoverer  of  many  new  facts  about  electricity. 

He  was  gone  nearly  five  years,  successfully  pleading  the 
cause  of  Pennsylvania,  and  publishing  a  pamphlet  which 
helped  to  prevent  the  restoration  of  Canada  to  the  French. 
Then  he  came  home,  to  be  met  by  an  escort  of  five  hun- 
dred horsemen,  and  to  be  honored  by  a  vote  of  thanks 
from  the  Assembly. 

But  the  dispute  with  the  proprietors  of  the  colony 
blazing  forth  again,  Franklin  was  sent  back  to  London 
once  more  to  oppose  the  Stamp  Act.  He  returned  to 
England  in  1764,  at  first  as  agent  of  Pennsylvania  only, 
but  in  time  as  the  representative  of  New  Jersey,  Georgia, 
and  Massachusetts  also ;  and  he  remained  for  more  than 
ten  years,  pleading  the  cause  of  the  colonists  against 
the  king,  and  explaining  to  all  who  chose  to  listen 
the  real  state  of  feeling  in  America.  He  did  what  he 
could  to  get  the  first  Stamp  Act  repealed.  He  gave  a 
good  account  of  himself  when  he  was  examined  by  a 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN  31 

committee  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  wrote  telling 
papers  of  all  sorts  :  one  a  set  of  "  Rules  for  Reducing  a 
Great  Empire  to  a  Small  One,"  and  another  purporting 
to  advance  the  claim  of  the  King  of  Prussia  to  levy  taxes 
in  Great  Britain  just  as  the  King  of  England  asserted 
the  right  to  lay  taxes  on  the  Americans.  He  lingered 
in  London,  doing  all  he  could  to  avert  the  war  which  he 
felt  to  be  inevitable.  At  last,  in  1775,  less  than  a  month 
before  the  battle  of  Lexington,  he  sailed  for  home. 

On  the  day  after  he  landed  he  was  chosen  a  member  of 
the  Second  Continental  Congress.  He  acted  as  Postmas- 
ter-general. He  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
making  answer  to  Harrison's  appeal  for  unanimity  :  "  Yes, 
we  must  all  hang  together,  or  assuredly  we  shall  all  hang 
separately."  Then  there  appeared  to  be  a  hope  that 
France  might  be  induced  to  help  us ;  and  in  September, 
1776,  Franklin  was  elected  envoy.  Being  then  seventy 
years  old,  he  went  to  Europe  for  the  fourth  time. 

In  France  he  received  such  a  welcome  as  no  other 
American  has  ever  met  with.  He  was  known  as  an 
author,  as  a  philosopher,  as  a  statesman.  The  king  and 
the  queen,  the  court  and  the  people,  all  were  his  friends. 
His  portraits  were  everywhere,  and  his  sayings  were  re- 
peated by  everybody.  In  the  magnificence  of  the  palace 
of  Versailles  Franklin  kept  his  dignified  simplicity ;  and 
with  his  customary  sagacity  he  turned  to  the  advantage  of 
his  country  all  the  good  will  shown  to  himself.  After  Bur- 
goyne's  surrender  the  French  agreed  to  an  open  alliance 
with  the  United  States,  and  Franklin,  with  his  fellow- 
commissioners,  signed  the  treaty  in  1778. 

During  the  war  Franklin  remained  in  France  as  Ameri- 
can Minister,  borrowing  money,  forwarding  supplies,  ex- 
changing prisoners,  and  carrying  on  an  immense  business 


32  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

on  behalf  of  his  country.  As  one  of  his  biographers 
remarks,  Franklin  "  stood  in  the  relation  of  a  navy  de- 
partment "  to  John  Paul  Jones  when  that  hardy  sailor  was 
harassing  the  British  coasts  in  the  "  Bonhomme  Richard," 
—  as  his  vessel  was  named,  after  "Poor  Richard."  He 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  countless  difficulties  which  beset  the 
American  representatives  in  Europe.  At  last  Cornwallis 
surrendered;  and,  with  Adams  and  Jay,  Franklin  signed 
the  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain,  in  September, 
1783.  The  next  year  Jefferson  went  to  France,  and  in 
1785  relieved  Franklin,  who  was  allowed  to  return  to 
America,  being  then  seventy-nine  years  of  age. 

His  "Autobiography,"  which  he  had  begun  in  1771  in 
England,  and  had  taken  up  again  in  France  in  1783,  he 
hoped  to  be  able  to  finish  now  that  he  was  at  home  again 
and  relieved  from  the  responsibility  of  office.  But  he  was 
at  once  elected  a  councillor  of  Philadelphia,  and  although 
he  would  have  liked  the  leisure  he  had  so  hardly  earned, 
he  felt  that  he  had  no  right  to  refuse  this  duty.  Then  was 
the  "critical  period  of  American  history,"  and  Franklin 
was  kept  busy  writing  to  his  friends  in  Europe  encouraging 
and  hopeful  accounts  of  our  affairs. 

When  the  constitutional  convention  met,  Franklin  was 
made  a  member  "that,  in  the  possible  absence  of  General 
Washington,  there  might  be  some  one  whom  all  could 
agree  in  calling  to  the  chair."  After  the  final  draft  of  the 
Constitution  was  prepared,  Franklin  made  a  speech  plead- 
ing for  harmony,  and  urging  that  the  document  be  sent 
before  the  people  with  the  unanimous  approbation  of  the 
members  of  the  convention.  Then,  while  the  last  mem- 
bers were  signing,  he  said  that  he  had  seen  a  sun  painted 
on  the  back  of  the  President's  chair,  and  during  the  long 
debates  when  there  seemed  little  hope  of  an  agreement  he 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN  33 

had  been  in  doubt  whether  it  was  taken  at  the  moment  of 
sunrise  or  sunset ;  "  but,"  he  said,  "  now  at  length  I  have 
the  happiness  to  know  that  it  is  a  rising  and  not  a  setting 
sun." 

He  was  now  a  very  old  man.  He  said  himself  :  "  I  seem 
to  have  intruded  myself  into  the  company  of  posterity, 
when  I  ought  to  have  been  abed  and  asleep."  His  cheer- 
fulness never  failed  him,  and  although  he  suffered  much, 
he  bore  up  bravely.  "  When  I  consider,"  he  wrote  in 
1788,  "how  many  more  terrible  maladies  the  human  body 
is  liable  to,  I  think  myself  well  off  that  I  have  only  three 
incurable  ones  :  the  gout,  the  stone,  and  old  age."  He 
looked  forward  to  death  without  fear,  writing  to  a  friend 
that,  as  he  had  seen  "a  good  deal  of  this  world,"  he  felt 
"a  growing  curiosity  to  be  acquainted  with  some  other." 

For  a  year  or  more  before  his  death  he  was  forced  to 
keep  his  bed.  When  at  last  the  end  was  near  and  a  pain 
seized  him  in  the  chest,  it  was  suggested  that  he  change 
his  position  and  so  breathe  more  easily.  "  A  dying  man 
can  do  nothing  easily,"  he  answered;  and  these  were  his 
last  words.  He  died  April  17,  1790,  respected  abroad  and 
beloved  at  home. 

In  many  ways  Franklin  was  the  most  remarkable  man 
who  came  to  maturity  while  these  United  States  were  yet 
British  colonies  ;  and  nothing,  perhaps,  was  more  remark- 
able about  him  than  the  fact  that  he  was  never  "colonial" 
in  his  attitude.  He  stood  before  kings  with  no  uneasy 
self-consciousness  or  self-assertion ;  and  he  faced  a  com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Commons  with  the  calm  strength 
of  one  thrice  armed  in  a  just  cause.  He  never  bragged 
or  blustered  ;  he  never  vaunted  his  country  or  himself. 
He  was  always  firm  and  dignified,  shrewd  and  good- 
humored. 

AMER.  LIT.  —  3 


34 


36  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

Humor,  indeed,  he  had  so  abundantly  that  it  was  almost 
a  failing.  Like  Abraham  Lincoln,  another  typical  Ameri- 
can, he  never  shrank  from  a  jest.  Like  Lincoln,  he  knew 
the  world  well  and  accepted  it  for  what  it  was,  and  made 
the  best  of  it,  expecting  no  more.  But  Franklin  lacked  the 
spirituality,  the  faith  in  the  ideal,  which  was  at  the  core 
of  Lincoln's  character.  And  here  was  Franklin's  limita- 
tion :  what  lay  outside  of  the  bounds  of  common  sense 
he  did  not  see—  probably  he  did  not  greatly  care  to  see; 
but  common  sense  he  had  in  a  most  uncommon  degree. 

One  of  his  chief  characteristics  was  curiosity — in  the 
wholesome  meaning  of  that  abused' word.  He  never  rested 
till  he  knew  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  all  that  aroused 
his  attention.  As  the  range  of  his  interests  was  extraordi- 
narily wide,  the  range  of  his  information  came  to  be  very 
extended  also.  He  was  thorough,  too ;  he  had  no  toler- 
ance for  superficiality ;  he  went  to  the  bottom  of  whatever 
he  undertook  to  investigate.  He  had  the  true  scientific 
spirit.  He  loved  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  although  he 
loved  it  best,  no  doubt,  when  it  could  be  made  immedi- 
ately useful  to  his  fellow-men.  In  science,  in  politics,  in 
literature,  he  was  eminently  practical ;  in  whatever  depart- 
ment of  human  endeavor  he  was  engaged,  he  brought  the 
same  qualities  to  bear.  For  the  medal  which  was  pre- 
sented to  Franklin  in  France  the  great  statesman  Turgot 
composed  the  line: 

Eripuit  coelo  fulmen  sceptrumque  tyrannis l ; 

and  it  was  true  that  Franklin  had  faced  the  ministers  of 
George  III.  with  the  same  fearless  eye  that  had  gazed  st 
the  thunder  cloud. 

1  He  has  seized  the  lightning  from  heaven  and  the  scepter  from  tyrants 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN  37 

There  is  an  admirable  series  in  course  of  publication 
containing  the  lives  of  American  men  of  letters,  and  there 
is  an  equally  admirable  series  containing  the  lives  of 
American  statesmen.  In  each  of  these  collections  there 
is  a  volume  devoted  to  Benjamin  Franklin ;  and  if  there 
were  also  a  series  of  American  scientific  men,  the  story  of 
Franklin's  life  would  need  to  be  told  anew  for  that  also. 
No  other  American  could  make  good  his  claim  to  be  in- 
cluded even  in  two  of  these  three  collections. 

As  science  advances,  the  work  of  the  discoverers  of  the 
past,  even  though  it  be  the  foundation  of  a  new  departure, 
may  sink  more  and  more  out  of  sight.  As  time  goes  on, 
and  we  prosper,  the  memory  of  our  indebtedness  to  each 
of  the  statesmen  who  assured  the  stability  of  our  institu- 
tions may  fade  away.  But  the  writer  of  a  book  which  the 
people  have  taken  to  heart  is  safe  in  their  remembrance ; 
and,  perhaps,  to-day  it  is  as  the  author  of  his  "Autobiogra- 
phy "  that  Franklin  is  best  known.  If  he  were  alive,  prob- 
ably nothing  would  surprise  him  more  than  that  he  should 
be  ranked  as  a  man  of  letters,  for  he  was  not  an  author  by 
profession.  He  was  not  moved  to  composition  by  desire 
of  fortune  or  of  fame  ;  he  wrote  always  to  help  a  cause,  to 
attain  a  purpose  ;  and  the  cause  having  been  won,  the  pur- 
pose having  been  achieved,  he  thought  no  more  about  what 
he  had  written.  He  had  a  perfect  understanding  of  the 
people  he  meant  to  reach,  and  of  the  means  whereby  he 
could  best  reach  them. 

Most  of  these  writings  were  mere  journalism,  to  be  for- 
gotten when  its  day's  work  was  done ;  but  some  of  them 
had  so  much  merit  of  their  own  that  they  have  survived 
the  temporary  debate  which  called  them  into  being.  Wit 
is  a  great  antiseptic,  and  it  has  kept  sweet  the  "Whistle," 
the  "Petition  of  the  Left  Hand,"  the  "  Dialogue  between 


38  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Franklin  and  the  Gout,"  and  the  lively  little  essay  on  the 
"Ephemera."  Wisdom  is  not  so  common  even  now  that 
men  can  afford  to  forget  "  Father  Abraham's  Speech,"  the 
"Necessary  Hints  to  Those  that  would  be  Rich,"  and 
"Digging  for  Hidden  Treasure."  Much  of  his  fun  is  as 
fresh  and  as  unforced  now  as  it  was  a  century  and  a  half 
ago.  Much  of  the  counsel  he  gives  so  pleasantly,  so 
gently,  so  wisely,  is  as  needful  now  as  it  was  when  "  Poor 
Richard  "  sent  forth  his  first  almanac. 

He  taught  his  fellow-countrymen  to  be  masters  of  the 
frugal  virtues.  He  taught  them  to  attain  to  self-support 
that  they  might  be  capable  of  self-sacrifice.  He  taught 
them  not  to  look  to  the  government  for  help,  but  to  stand 
ready  always  to  help  the  government  if  need  be.  There 
are  limits  to  his  doctrine,  no  doubt ;  and  there  are  things 
undreamt  of  in  Franklin's  philosophy.  Yet,  his  philosophy 
was  good  so  far  as  it  went;  in  its  own  field  to  this  clay 
there  is  no  better.  Common  sense  cannot  comprehend 
all  things  ;  but  it  led  Franklin  to  try  to  help  people  to  be 
happy,  for  he  believed  that  this  was  the  best  way  to  make 
them  good. 

It  was  by  watching  and  by  thinking  that  Franklin 
arrived  at  his  wisdom  ;  and  it  was  not  by  chance  that  he 
was  able  to  set  forth  his  views  so  persuasively.  Skill  in 
letters  is  never  a  lucky  accident.  How  rigorously  he 
trained  himself  in  composition  he  has  told  us  in  the 
"Autobiography"  —how  he  pondered  on  his  parts  of 
speech  and  practiced  himself  in  all  sorts  of  literary  gym- 
nastics. And  of  the  success  of  his  training  there  is  no 
better  proof  than  the  "Autobiography"  itself.  It  is  a 
marvelous  volume,  holding  its  own  to-day  beside  "Robin- 
son Crusoe,"  as  one  of  the  books  which  are  a  perpetual 
delight  to  young  and  to  old.  to  the  scholar  familiar  with 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN  39 

Franklin's  achievements,  and  to  the  boy  just  able  to  spell 
out  its  simplest  sentences.  It  is  one  of  the  best  books 
of  its  kind  in  any  language,  and  it  abides  as  the  chief 
monument  of  Benjamin  Franklin's  fame. 

QUESTIONS.  —  Tell  the  story  of  Franklin's  life  in  Boston. 

Describe  the  publication  that  first  made  Franklin  famous. 

Mention  several  facts  which  go  to  show  that  Franklin  preached  self- 
ishness in  order  that  he  might  encourage  philanthropy.  How  did  he 
spend  his  leisure  ? 

Trace  Franklin's  public  career  before  the  war  for  independence. 

Speak  of  his  public  services  during  the  war. 

What  things  happened  to  prevent  Franklin  from  completing,  during 
the  critical  period  of  American  history,  a  literary  work  upon  which  he 
had  long  been  engaged  ? 

Describe  Franklin's  last  years. 

Show  how  Franklin's  chief  characteristic  was  manifested  in  his  life. 

In  what  three  fields  was  Franklin  famous? 

How  was  Franklin  able  to  invest  his  writings  with  the  qualities  that 
have  preserved  them  from  sharing  the  neglect  usually  bestowed  upon 
productions  of  their  class  ? 

NOTE.  —  There  is  an  edition  of  Franklin's  complete  works,  including  his  cor- 
respondence (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  out  of  print).  The  fullest  edition  of  the 
"Autobiography"  is  that  of  Mr.  John  Bigelow  (J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.,  3  vols., 
$4.50).  There  is  a  condensed  edition  in  the  Riverside  Literature  series  (Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  40  cents)  ;  and  the  same  series  has  also  one  number  containing 
"Poor  Richard's  Almanack"  and  other  selections  from  Franklin's  writings  (15  cents). 

There  are  biographies  by  James  Parton  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  2  vols.,  $5), 
by  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.  (American  Statesmen  series,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  $1.50), 
and  by  Prof.  J.  B.  McMaster  (American  Men  of  Letters  senes,  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  $i  25;. 


IV     WASHINGTON    IRVING 

THE  first  American  man  of  letters,  Benjamin  Franklin, 
was  a  man  of  letters  only  incidentally,  and,  as  it  were, 
accidentally ;  for  he  was  a  printer  by  trade,  a  politician 
by  choice,  and  never  an  author  by  profession. 

The  first  American  who  frankly  adopted  literature  as  a 
calling,  and  who  successfully  relied  on  his  pen  for  his 
support,  was  Washington  Irving.  The  first  American 
who  was  a  professed  author  was  not  Franklin,  who  was 
born  a  Bostonian  and  who  died  a  Philadelphian  ;  but  Irving, 
who  was  born,  who  lived,  and  who  died  a  New  Yorker. 

40 


WASHINGTON    IRVING  41 

Washington  Irving's  father  was  a  Scotchman  who  had 
settled  in  New  York  a  dozen  years  before  the  Revolution. 
During  the  British  occupation  of  Manhattan  Island,  the 
Irvings  were  stanch  patriots,  and  did  what  they  could  to 
relieve  the  sufferings  of  the  American  prisoners  in  the 
city.  A  few  months  before  the  evacuation  day,  which  the 
inhabitants  of  New  York  were  to  keep  as  a  holiday  for  a 
century  after,  Washington  Irving  was  born,  on  April  3, 
1783,  being,  like  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  youngest  of  many 
sons.  The  boy  was  not  baptized  until  after  Washington 
and  his  army  had  entered  the  city.  "  Washington's  work 
is  ended,"  said  the  mother,  "and  the  child  shall  be  named 
after  him." 

New  York  came  out  of  the  Revolution  half  in  ruins,  and 
wasted  by  its  long  captivity ;  its  straggling  streets  filled 
only  the  toe  of  the  island,  and  it  had  less  than  twenty-five 
thousand  inhabitants.  But  the  little  city  began  to  grow 
again  as  soon  as  peace  returned.  It  was  in  New  York,  in 
1789,  that  Washington  took  the  oath  as  the  first  President 
of  these  United  States.  One  day  not  long  thereafter  a 
Scotch  maidservant  of  the  Irvings,  struck  with  the  enthu- 
siasm which  everywhere  greeted  the  great  man,  followed 
him  into  a  shop  with  the  youngest  son  of  the  family,  and 
said,  "  Please,  your  honor,  here's  a  bairn  was  named  for 
you."  Washington  placed  his  hand  on  the  head  of  the 
boy,  and  gave  him  his  blessing. 

New  York  was  then  the  capital  of  the  country ;  it  was 
a  spreading  seaport ;  it  retained  many  traces  of  its  Dutch 
origin  ;  it  had  in  its  streets  men  of  every  calling  and  of 
every  color.  Here  the  boy  grew  up  happy,  going  to 
school  and  getting  knowledge  out  of  books,  but  also  linger- 
ing along  the  pier  heads,  and  picking  up  the  information 
to  be  gathered  in  that  best  of  universities  —  a  great  city- 


42  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

He  was  playful  rather  than  studious  ;  and  although  two  of 
his  brothers  had  been  educated  at  Columbia  College,  he 
neglected  to  enter — a  blunder  which  he  regretted  all  his 
life,  and  which  Columbia  regrets  to  this  day.  Perhaps 
the  fault  may  be  charged  to  his  poor  health,  for  the  sake 
of  improving  which  he  began  to  live  much  in  the  open 
air,  making  voyages  up  the  Hudson  in  sloops  that  then 
plied  as  packets  between  New  York  and  Albany.  The 
first  sail  through  the  Highlands  was  to  him  a  time  of 
intense  delight,  and  the  Catskill  Mountains  had  the  most 
witching  effect  on  his  boyish  imagination.  Nowadays  we 
are  used  to  hearing  the  Hudson  praised,  but  it  was  Irving 
who  first  proclaimed  its  enchanting  beauty ;  and  it  was 
when  he  was  a  dreaming  youth  that  he  discovered  its 
charm. 

Much  against  the  grain  he  began  to  read  law,  but  his 
studies  were  only  fitful.  One  of  his  brothers  established 
a  daily  paper  in  1802  ;  and  to  this  Washington,  then  only 
nineteen,  contributed  a  series  of  occasional  essays  under 
the  signature  of  Jonathan  Oldstyle.  These  were  humor- 
ous and  sportive  papers,  and  they  were  copied  far  and 
wide,  as  the  sayings  of  Poor  Richard  had  been  quoted 
fifty  years  before. 

The  next  summer,  Irving  made  a  journey  up  the 
Mohawk,  to  Ogdensburg,  and  thence  to  Montreal.  The 
year  after,  being  then  just  twenty-one,  his  brothers  sent 
him  to  Europe  in  the  hope  that  the  long  sea  voyage  and 
the  change  of  scene  might  restore  him  to  health.  Irving 
had  to  be  helped  up  the  side  of  the  ship,  and  the  captain 
said  to  himself,  "There's  a  chap  who  will  go  overboard 
before  we  get  across."  The  voyage  did  him  good,  and 
from  Bordeaux  he  went  to  Genoa ;  he  pushed  on  as  far 
as  Sicily,  and  came  back  to  Rome ;  then  turned  north  to 


WASHINGTON    IRVING  43 

Paris,  and  finally  crossed  over  to  London.  After  a  year 
and  a  half  of  most  enjoyable  wandering  he  took  ship  again 
for  home,  and  arrived  safely  in  New  York  after  a  stormy 
passage  of  sixty-four  days. 

Washington  Irving  now  returned  to  the  study  of  law, 
and  he  was  soon  admitted  to  the  bar  —  a  proof  rather  of 
the  mercy  of  the  examiners  than  of  the  amount  of  his  legal 
knowledge.  He  never  made  any  serious  attempt  to  earn 
his  living  as  a  lawyer.  Only  a  few  weeks  after  his  admis- 
sion, he,  his  brother  William,  and  his  friend  James  K. 
Paulding,  sent  forth  the  first  number  of  "  Salmagundi,"  an 
irregular  periodical  suggested,  perhaps,  by  the  "  Spectator" 
of  Addison  and  Steele,  but  droller,  more  waggish,  and 
with  sharper  shafts  for  folly  as  it  flies.  The  first  number 
was  published  in  January,  1807,  and  caused  not  only  great 
amusement,  but  also  much  wonder  as  to  the  real  names  of 
the  daring  authors.  The  twentieth,  and  final  number, 
appeared  a  year  later.  Irving  always  spoke  of  it  as  a  very 
juvenile  production,  and  such  it  is,  no  doubt ;  but  it  was 
brisk  and  lively,  indeed  it  was  brighter  than  anything  of 
the  kind  yet  written  in  America ;  and  in  the  papers  con- 
tributed by  Washington  Irving  we  can  see  the  germs  of 
certain  of  his  later  works. 

One  of  these  papers  pretended  to  be  a  chapter  from 
"The  Chronicles  of  the  Renowned  and  Ancient  City  of 
Gotham,"  1  and  Irving's  next  literary  undertaking  was  a 
burlesque  history  of  New  York,  which  he  and  his  brother 
Peter  undertook  to  write  together.  The  brothers  had 
heaped  up  many  notes  when  Peter  was  called  away,  and 
Washington,  changing  the  plan  of  the  book,  began  to 
write  it  alone.  He  started  on  his  labor  joyful  and  happy, 

1  Gotham  was  an  English  village  proverbial  for  the  blundering  simplicity 
of  its  inhabitants.  Irving  humorously  applied  the  name  to  New  York. 


44  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

but  he  ended  it  in  the  depths  of  sorrow.  He  was  in  love 
with  Miss  Matilda  Hoffman,  a  charming  and  graceful  girl, 
and  their  marriage  had  been  agreed  on.  Suddenly,  having 
caught  a  bad  cold,  which  went  to  her  lungs,  after  a  brief 
illness  she  died.  Irving,  then  twenty-six,  bore  the  blow 
like  a  man,  but  he  carried  the  scar  to  the  grave.  To  his 
most  intimate  friends  he  never  mentioned  her  name.  For 
several  months  after  her  death  he  wandered  aimlessly, 
unable  to  apply  himself  to  anything.  Then  he  went  back 
to  his  work,  and  finished  the  burlesque  history  of  New 
York.  It  may  seem  strange  that  a  book  of  such  bubbling 
humor  should  be  the  result  of  those  days  of  darkness  ;  but 
as  has  often  happened  in  literature,  the  writings  at  which 
people  laugh  longest  are  the  work  of  men  who  are  grave 
rather  than  gay. 

"  A  History  of  New  York,  by  Diedrich  Knickerbocker," 
was  published  in  December,  1809.  It  was  a  playful  parody 
of  the  annals  of  New  Amsterdam,  laughing  at  the  Dutch 
burghers  who  had  founded  the  capital  of  New  Netherlands, 
and  making  fun  of  their  manners  and  their  customs.  In  the 
method  of  the  author  there  was  more  than  a  trace  of  the 
manner  of  "Don  Quixote,"  and  its  irony  was  as  gentle  and 
as  good-natured.  That  "  Knickerbocker  "  was  received  with 
acclamation  there  is  no  wonder.  It  was  the  most  readable 
book  which  had  yet  appeared  in  America  —  for  Franklin's 
"Autobiography"  did  not  get  into  print  until  1817.  At 
home  it  gave  a  name  to  a  time  in  New  York's  history  and 
to  a  set  of  the  city's  traditions,  a  name  even  now  in  popular 
use,  for  every  one  knows  what  is  meant  when  we  speak  of 
a  person  or  a  thing  as  a  "  Knickerbocker."  Abroad  it 
revealed  to  the  critics  that  American  life  was  to  have  its 
own  literature.  Scott  read  the  book  aloud  to  his  family. 
The  book  still  delights  all  who  can  appreciate  its  delicate 


WASHINGTON    IRVING 


fun  ;  nowadays  our  taste  in  humor  is  more  highly  spiced 
than  it  was  when  "  Knickerbocker  "  appeared,  but  it  is  not 
purer. 

The  protests  which  a  few  descendants  of  the  Dutch 
founders  of  the  city  ventured  to  put  forth  were  laughed 
aside,  for  the  public  had  taken  the  joke  and  were  unwilling 
to  have  the  fun  spoiled.  Yet  it  is  to  be  regretted  that,  in 
his  youth,  Irving  should  have  echoed  the  British  scoffs  at 
the  Dutch.  We  are  rarely  fair  to  our  rivals,  and  the 
Dutch  had  not  only  taught  the  British  agriculture  and 
commerce,  but  they  had  swept  the  British  Channel  with  a 
broom  at  their  admiral's  masthead  ;  and  so  the  British  dis- 
liked them.  Foremost  in  art,  and  in  law,  and  in  education, 
the  Dutch  had  exerted  a  most  wholesome  influence  on 
American  institutions  —  the  chief  of  which,  our  common- 
school  system,  was  probably  derived  from  Holland.  Irving 
did  not  think  of  this  when  he  made  fun  of  the  Dutchmen 
of  New  Amsterdam,  or  he  did  not  know  it.  There  was 
no  malice  in  his  satire;  but  thoughtlessness  sometimes 
hurts  as  severely. 

For  ten  years  after  the  publication  of  "  Knickerbocker," 
Irving  brought  forth  no  new  work.  He  lingered  and  loi- 
tered and  hesitated.  He  went  to  Washington  for  a  season, 
and  he  edited  a  magazine  in  Philadelphia.  When  the  War 
of  1812  broke  out,  he  was  stanchly  patriotic,  although  he 
deplored  the  war  itself.  After  the  wanton  destruction  of 
the  capitol  at  Washington  by  the  British,  he  offered  his 
services  to  the  governor  of  New  York,  and  was  appointed 
aid  and  military  secretary.  In  1815,  after  peace  was  pro- 
claimed, he  made  another  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  to 
England  to  see  his  brother.  Intending  only  a  brief  visit, 
he  was  absent  from  home,  as  it  happened,  for  seventeen 
years. 


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48  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

In  England  and  in  Scotland  he  met  the  literary  celebri- 
ties of  the  day,  among  them  Sir  Walter  Scott.  At  last  he 
turned  again  to  literature,  and  the  first  number  of  "  The 
Sketch  Book  of  Geoffrey  Crayon,  Gent."  was  published  in 
New  York  in  1819.  The  "  Sketch  Book"  was  a  miscellany 
of  essays,  sketches,  and  tales.  As  Irving  wrote  to  a  friend, 
he  had  "attempted  no  lofty  theme,  nor  sought  to  look  wise 
and  learned."  "I  have  preferred,"  he  said,  "addressing 
myself  to  the  feeling  and  fancy  of  the  reader  more  than  to 
his  judgment."  The  first  number  contained  the  "Voyage 
to  England"  and  "Rip  Van  Winkle."  Its  success  was 
instant  and  remarkable.  As  the  following  numbers  ap- 
peared, they  began  to  be  reprinted  in  British  periodicals ; 
and  so  Irving,  still  detained  in  England,  gathered  the  first 
four  numbers  into  a  volume  and  issued  it  in  London.  The 
series  extended  to  seven  numbers  in  America  ;  and  later  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  the  complete  book  was  published 
in  two  volumes  toward  the  end  of  1820.  Thereafter  Irving 
had  a  secure  place  in  the  history  of  English  literature. 

The  charm  of  the  "  Sketch  Book "  is  not  difficult  to 
define.  Sunshine  lights  up  every  page,  and  a  cheerful 
kindliness  glows  upon  them  all.  From  the  "  Sketch 
Book  "  we  must  date  the  revival  of  Christmas  feasting, 
although,  no  doubt,  Irving  was  aided  powerfully  by  Dick- 
ens, who  took  the  American  as  his  model  in  more  ways 
than  we  are  wont  to  remark.  It  is  the  "Sketch  Book" 
which  has  sent  thousands  of  Americans  across  the  Atlan- 
tic, passionate  pilgrims  to  Stratford,  entranced  wanderers 
through  Westminster  Abbey,  and  happy  loiterers  in  the 
country  churchyards  of  England.  Although  in  the  second 
number  of  the  "Sketch  Book,"  Irving  warned  "English 
Writers  on  America"  that  their  malicious  reports  were 
certain  to  cause  ill  will — as,  indeed,  they  have  done  —  no 


WASHINGTON   IRVING  49 

American  ever  felt  more  kindly  toward  England  ;  and  when 
he   died,  Thackeray,  calling   him    "  the   first    ambassador 
whom  the  New  World  of  Letters  sent  to  the  Old,"  praised 
him  for  his  constant  good  will  to  the  mother  country. 
Though  Irving  was  stalwart  in  his  Americanism  always, 

—  he  refused,  for  example,  to  write  for  the  Quarterly  Re- 
view, because  it  had  ever  been  a  bitter  enemy  to  America 

—  he  had  a  sincere  liking  for  England,  and  a  hearty  ap- 
preciation of  its  picturesque  possibilities.     This  was  shown 
to  advantage  in  his  next  book,  "Bracebridge  Hall,"  pub- 
lished in   1822;    and  it  was    seen  even  in  the  book  that 
followed   this — the  "  Tales  of  a  Traveler,"  published  in 
1824.     These   two    collections  may  be  described  not  un- 
fairly as  continuations  of  the  "  Sketch  Book,"  the  former 
containing  chiefly  essays  and  sketches,  and  the  latter,  only 
short  stories  and  character  portraits.     There  is  in  all  the 
libraries  of  England  no  book  more  filled  with  the  gentle 
spirit  of   English  country  life  than  "Bracebridge  Hall"; 
and  Irving  himself  never  wrote  a  more  delicately  humorous 
sketch  than  the  "Stout  Gentleman,"  in  that  volume. 

In  the  history  of  the  short  story,  one  of  the  most  useful 
as  it  is  one  of  the  most  popular  of  literary  forms,  Irving 
holds  a  high  place.  The  "Sketch  Book"  owed  much  of 
its  success  to  "  Rip  Van  Winkle  "  and  the  "  Legend  of 
Sleepy  Hollow" — tales  of  a  kind  till  then  unknown  in 
English  literature ;  and  "  Dolph  Heyliger,"  in  "  Brace- 
bridge  Hall,"  is  a  worthy  third,  while  "Wolfert  Webber," 
in  the  "  Tales  of  a  Traveler,"  is  not  far  behind.  Consider- 
ing their  strength,  Irving's  short  stories  have  a  singular 
simplicity ;  they  are  slight  in  plot  and  simple  in  the  char- 
acter drawing.  He  understood  his  own  powers  clearly. 
"  I  consider  a  story  merely  as  a  frame  on  which  to  stretch 
my  materials,"  so  he  wrote  to  a  friend ;  "  it  is  the  play  of 

AMER.  LIT. — 4 


50  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

thought,  and  sentiment,  and  language ;  the  weaving  in  of 
characters,  lightly  yet  expressively  delineated  ;  the  familiar 
and  faithful  exhibition  of  scenes  of  common  life  ;  and  the 
half-concealed  vein  of  humor  that  is  often  playing  through 
the  whole  ;  these  are  among  what  I  aim  at." 

This  is  a  fair  statement  of  the  qualities  which  give 
charm  to  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  and  its  fellows.  Little  did 
Irving  foresee  that  these  tales  of  his  were  but  the  first 
fruits  of  that  abundant  harvest,  rich  in  local  flavor,  which 
later  American  story  tellers  were  to  raise,  each  on  his  own 
half-acre.  Hawthorne  and  Poe,  Bret  Harte  and  Cable,  are 
all  followers  in  Irving's  footsteps. 

It  was  while  Byron  and  Scott  were  the  leaders  of  Eng- 
lish letters  that  Irving  published  the  "  Sketch  Book,"  and 
made  good  his  own  title  to  an  honorable  position  in  litera- 
ture. By  the  publication  of  "  Bracebridge  Hall,"  and  of 
the  "Tales  of  a  Traveler,"  his  footing  became  firmer,  no 
doubt ;  but  he  did  not  advance  further.  Irving  was  in 
Spain  in  1826,  and  there  he  remained  for  more  than  three 
years  —  the  most  laborious  and  fruitful  years  of  his  life. 
He  had  gone  to  Spain  to  translate  some  important 
Spanish  documents  concerning  Columbus ;  but  getting 
interested  in  the  character  and  in  the  career  of  Columbus, 
he  soon  settled  down  to  the  preparation  of  a  biography 
of  his  own.  He  took  his  task  seriously ;  he  spared  no 
pains  in  getting  every  date  right  and  every  proper  name 
exact ;  he  rewrote  as  often  as  he  discovered  new  material. 
He  knew  that  a  biography  was  not  a  work  of  fiction,  to  be 
warped  at  the  will  of  the  writer,  but  rather  a  monument  to 
be  built  slowly  out  of  actual  facts. 

When  the  "Life  of  Columbus"  appeared  in  1828,  it  was 
seen  at  once  that  Irving  had  not  only  the  gift  of  the  born 
story  teller,  but  also  the  sterner  virtues  of  the  historian. 


WASHINGTON   IRVING  51 

To  this  day,  despite  the  storm  of  dispute  which  has  raged 
over  every  item  of  Columbus's  career,  Irving's  biography 
remains  a  valuable  authority.  A  most  devoted  student  of 
the  details  of  Columbus's  life  has  declared  that  Irving's 
"is  a  history  written  with  judgment  and  impartiality,  which 
leaves  far  behind  it  all  descriptions  of  the  discovery  of  the 
New  World  published  before  or  since."  If  to-day  it  were 
edited  with  notes  embodying  the  latest  information,  it 
would  hold  its  own  against  all  newcomers.  The  reader 
sees  a  completed  painting,  and  not  the  raw  materials  out 
of  which  he  is  invited  to  make  a  picture  for  himself. 

The  "  Life  of  Columbus  "  was  soon  followed  by  a  book 
about  the  "Companions  of  Columbus,"  and  by  the 
"  Chronicle  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada,"  which  Irving 
regarded  as  his  best  work,  and  which  Coleridge  greeted 
as  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind.  Just  what  its  kind  is,  it  is 
not  easy  to  declare,  but  perhaps  it  may  be  described  as  a 
record  of  fact  presented  with  the  freedom  the  author  had 
used  in  writing  fiction.  In  the  main,  it  is  a  true  story, 
but  it  is  as  obedient  to  the  hands  of  the  story  teller  as 
though  he  had  made  it  up.  The  narrative  is  spirited,  the 
style  is  delightful,  and  there  is  a  never-ending  play  of 
sentiment  and  humor. 

These  are  the  qualities  which  grace  yet  another  Spanish 
book,  the  "  Alhambra,"  perhaps  the  most  fascinating  of  all 
Irving's  writings.  The  "Alhambra"  is  a  medley  of  travel, 
sketches,  character  studies,  and  brief  tales  ;  it  is  what 
Prescott  called  it :  a  Spanish  "Sketch  Book."  The  method 
of  the  author  is  the  same  as  in  his  "  Sketch  Book,"  only 
he  has  changed  the  model  who  poses  before  him.  "  Brace- 
bridge  Hall"  is  not  more  English  than  the  "Alhambra" 
is  Spanish.  It  is  full  of  the  sights  and  the  sounds  of 
Spain ;  and  there  it  is  pleasant  to  gaze  upon  this  reflec- 


52  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

tion  of  Moorish  architecture  and  Iberian  landscape  and 
Spanish  character  in  the  clear  mirror  held  up  to  nature 
by  the  genial  New  Yorker. 

The  "Alhambra"  was  published  in  1832,  and  after  an 
absence  of  seventeen  years,  Irving  returned  to  his  native 
city.  He  found  New  York  wonderfully  expanded  ;  in  the 
scant  half-century  of  his  life,  the  twenty  thousand  popula- 
tion had  increased  to  two  hundred  thousand.  He  was  made 
heartily  welcome,  and  his  fellow-citizens  promptly  bestowed 
on  him  the  compliment  of  a  public  dinner.  From  that  clay 
to  his  death  he  was  the  acknowledged  head  of  American 
letters.  He  bore  his  honors  as  easily  as  he  bore  all  things. 

He  made  a  home  for  himself  in  the  village. of  Tarrytown, 
New  York,  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  he  loved,  and  near 
the  Sleepy  Hollow  he  had  celebrated.  Here,  in  the  stone 
cottage  of  Sunnyside,  he  settled  down,  enjoying  the  leisure 
which  now  and  again  he  varied  by  periods  of  hard  labor. 
He  made  a  tour  on  the  prairies  ;  he  wrote  an  account  of 
the  settlement  of  Astoria  in  Oregon  ;  he  put  into  shape 
the  travels  of  Captain  Bonneville ;  and  he  began  work  on 
a  history  of  the  conquest  of  Mexico,  but  with  his  wonted 
generosity  he  surrendered  the  subject  to  Prescott  when  he 
was  told  that  the  younger  author  was  about  to  undertake  it. 

Thus  ten  years  passed  away;  and  in  1842  Irving  was 
making  ready  to  write  the  life  of  Washington,  when  he  was 
surprised  by  the  appointment  of  Minister  to  Spain.  Daniel 
Webster  was  then  Secretary  of  State,  and  he  knew  no 
American  could  be  more  welcome  in  Spain  than  the  biog- 
rapher of  Columbus.  A  foreign  appointment  is  almost  the 
only  honor  a  republic  can  bestow  upon  its  foremost  authors  ; 
the  first  of  American  men  of  letters,  Benjamin  Franklin, 
had  been  Minister  to  France ;  and  after  Irving,  similar 
positions  were  to  be  held  by  Motley,  and  Bancroft,  and 


WASHINGTON   IRVING  53 

Lowell.  Irving  accepted  the  appointment,  and  spent  four 
years  in  Madrid,  with  occasional  visits  to  Paris  and  to  Lon- 
don. Then  in  1846  he  came  home  again,  and  settled  down 
at  Sunnyside  for  the  last  thirteen  years  of  his  happy  life. 

Among  the  labors  of  these  later  years  were  the  extend- 
ing of  an  earlier  and  briefer  biography  of  Goldsmith,  an 
account  of  Mahomet  and  his  contemporaries,  and  a  voi- 


Sunnyside 

ume  of  miscellanies,  called  "  Wolfert's  Roost,"  containing 
sketches  and  stories  like  those  in  the  "Sketch  Book"  and 
the  "Alhambra."  Tarrytown  is  only  a  few  miles  from 
New  York,  and  Irving  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  city 
of  his  birth.  He  has  been  described  as  walking  along 
Broadway  with  his  head  "slightly  inclined  to  one  side,  the 
face  .  .  .  smoothly  shaven,"  and  the  eyes  "twinkling" 
with  kindly  humor  and  shrewdness.  There  was  a  chirping, 
cheery,  old-school  air  in  his  whole  appearance. 


54  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Washington  Irving  was  at  that  time  perhaps  the  best 
known  of  living  Americans ;  and  he  was  then  engaged  on 
the  biography  of  the  best  known  of  all  Americans  alive  or 
dead.  The  first  volume  of  Irving's  "Life  of  Washington" 
appeared  in  1855,  and  the  work  was  completed  in  1859. 
Irving  was  doubtful  about  its  reception,  but  it  became 
instantly  popular ;  it  had  a  very  large  sale,  and  it  was 
lauded  by  his  fellow-historians.  Bancroft  praised  the  style, 
calling  it  "  masterly,  clear,  easy."  Prescott  wrote:  "You 
have  done  with  Washington  just  as  I  thought  you  would, 
and,  instead  of  a  cold  marble  statue  of  a  demigod,  you 
have  made  him  a  being  of  flesh  and  blood,  like  ourselves 
—  one  with  whom  we  can  have  sympathy." 

In  the  year  in  which  the  final  volume  of  the  "  Washing- 
ton "  was  published,  Irving  died  at  Sunnyside  on  November 
28,  1859,  being  then  seventy-six  years  old.  American  men 
of  letters  are  a  long-lived  race  ;  Franklin,  Emerson,  Bryant, 
and  Whittier  lived  to  be  older  than  Irving,  while  Long- 
fellow and  Lowell  were  only  a  little  younger  at  their 
deaths.  Like  Irving,  they  all  died  full  of  years  and  full  of 
honors  ;  they  all  had  led  happy  lives. 

No  later  American  writer  has  surpassed  him  in  charm. 
Before  Irving  had  discovered  the  beauty  of  the  Hudson, 
the  river  was  as  lovely  as  it  is  to-day,  but  its  legends  were 
little  known.  He  it  was  who  peopled  the  green  nooks  of 
Sleepy  Hollow  and  the  rocky  crags  of  the  Catskills.  His 
genius  was  not  stalwart  or  rugged,  and  it  did  not  conquer 
admiration  ;  it  won  its  way  softly,  by  the  aid  of  senti- 
ment and  of  humor.  "  Knickerbocker's  History,"  and  the 
"Sketch  Book,"  and  the  "Alhambra,"  are  his  titles  to 
fame;  not  the  "Columbus"  or  the  "Washington."  He 
had  the  conscience  of  the  historian  and  he  could  color  his 
narrative  artistically  and  give  it  movement ;  but  others 


WASHINGTON    IRVING  55 

could  do  this  as  well  as  he.  But  to  call  into  being  a 
civilization,  to  give  to  a  legend  the  substance  of  truth,  to 
present  a  fiction,  so  that  it  passes  for  fact  and  is  accepted 
by  the  people  and  gets  into  common  speech  —  this  is  a 
feat  very  few  authors  have  ever  accomplished.  Irving  did 
it,  and  his  greatest  work  is  not  any  one  of  his  books  —  it 
is  the  Knickerbocker  legend. 

QUESTIONS.  —  What  events  were  happening  in  and  around  New 
York  during  the  early  years  of  Irving's  life? 

What  can  you  say  about  "  Salmagundi  "  ? 

Describe  Irvings  first  important  literary  work. 

How  was  Irving  occupied  during  the  ten  years  that  followed  the 
publication  of  "  Knickerbocker  "  ? 

What  was  Thackeray's  characterization  of  Irving? 

Discuss  Irving's  place  in  the  history  of  the  short  story. 

Comment  upon  four  books  which  grew  out  of  Irving's  third  visit  to 
Europe. 

How  were  the  ten  years  of  Irving's  life  passed  after  his  return  home? 

Describe  his  last  great  literary  work. 

What  was  the  nature  of  Irving's  genius? 

NOTE.  —  The  authorized  edition  of  Irving's  works  is  published  by  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons  (12  vols.,  $15).  Selections  from  the  "  Sketch  Book"  are  published  by 
the  American  Book  Company  (20  cents)  and  in  two  numbers  of  the  Riverside 
Literature  series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  15  cents  each).  The  whole  "Sketch 
Book  "  and  the  "  Tales  of  a  Traveler,"  annotated  by  Dr.  W.  L.  Phelps,  and  the 
"  Alhambra,"  annotated  by  Mr.  Arthur  Marvin,  are  in  the  Student's  series  (G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons,  $i).  An  annotated  edition  of  the  "  Tales  of  a  Traveler"  is  issued 
by  the  American  Book  Company  (50  cents).  Another  edition  by  Prof.  Brander 
Matthews  and  Prof.  G.  R.  Carpenter  is  published  by  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  ($l). 

There  are  biographies  by  Pierre  M.  Irving  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  3  vols.,  $4.50) 
and  by  Mr.  C.  D.  Warner  in  the  American  Men  of  Letters  series  (Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  $1.25). 

For  criticism,  see  Lowell's  "  Fable  for  Critics  *  ;  Thackeray's  "  Nil  Nisi  Bonum  " 
(in  "Roundabout  Papers");  Mr.  Warner's  "Work  of  Washington  Irving"  (in 
Harper's  Black  and  White  series ) ;  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells  (in  "  My  Literary  Pas- 
sions"); G.  W.  Curtis  (in  "  Literary  and  Social  Addresses");  and  Prof.  C.  F. 
Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "American  Literature"). 


V     JAMES    FENIMORE   COOPER 

As  Irving  was  the  first  American  author  whose  writ- 
ings won  favor  outside  of  his  native  land,  so  another  New 
Yorker,  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  was  the  first  American 
author  whose  works  gained  a  wide  circulation  outside  of 
his  native  tongue.  While  the  "  Sketch  Book "  was  as 
popular  in  Great  Britain  as  in  the  United  States,  the 
"Spy,"  and  the  "Pilot,"  and  the  "Last  of  the  Mohicans," 
were  as  popular  on  the  continent  of  Europe  as  they  were 
in  America,  North  and  South.  To  the  French  and  the 
Germans,  to  the  Italians  and  the  Spaniards,  James  Feni- 

56 


JAMES   FENIMORE    COOPER 


57 


more  Cooper  is  as  well  known  as  Walter  Scott.  Irving  was 
the  first  American  writer  of  short  stories,  but  Cooper  was 
the  first  American  novelist ;  and,  to  the  present  day,  he 
is  the  one  American  novelist  whose  fame  is  solidly  estab- 
lished among  foreigners. 

Born  at  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  on  September  15,  1789, 
Cooper  was  taken  in  infancy  to  Otsego  Lake  in  the  interior 


Otsego  Hall 

of  New  York ;  and  here,  at  the  point  where  the  Susque- 
hanna  streams  forth  on  its  way  to  join  the  distant  Chesa- 
peake, Cooper's  father  built  the  stately  mansion  called 
Otsego  Hall.  The  elder  Cooper  was  the  owner  of  many 
thousand  acres  along  the  head  waters  of  the  Susque- 
hanna,  and  in  this  wilderness,  centering  around  the 
freshly  founded  village  of  Cooperstown,  the  son  grew  into 
boyhood.  He  could  pass  his  days  on  the  beautiful  lake, 


58  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

shut  in  by  the  untouched  forest,  or  in  the  woods  them- 
selves which  rose  with  the  hills  and  fell  away  into  the 
valleys.  He  slept  at  night  amid  the  solemn  silence  of  a 
little  settlement,  a  hundred  miles  beyond  the  advancing 
-line  of  civilization. 

Hard  as  it  may  be  for  us  now  to  realize  it,  a  century  ago 
"  the  backwoods  "  were  in  the  state  of  New  York.  It  was 
only  during  the  Revolution  that  the  people  of  our  stock 
made  ready  to  push  their  way  across  the  Alleghanies.  For 
years  after  the  nineteenth  century  had  begun,  the  only 
white  men  who  sped  down  the  Mississippi,  or  toiled  slowly 
up  against  its  broad  current,  spoke  another  tongue  than 
ours.  Although  Cooper  lived  in  New  York,  it  was  in  the 
backwoods  that  he  spent  his  childhood,  and  to  Cooperstown 
he  returned  at  intervals  throughout  his  life.  Backwoods 
scenes  and  backwoods  characters  he  could  always  recall 
at  will  from  his  earliest  recollections.  The  craft  of  the 
woodsman,  the  tricks  of  the  trapper,  all  the  delicate  art  of 
the  forest,  were  familiar  to  Cooper  from  his  youth  up,  just 
as  the  eery  legends  of  North  Britain  and  stirring  ballads 
of  the  Border  had  been  absorbed  by  Walter  Scott. 

Franklin  never  had  the  chance  of  a  college  education  ; 
Irving  was  fitted  for  Columbia,  but  did  not  enter ;  Cooper 
entered  Yale,  but  did  not  graduate  —  and  the  fault  was  his 
own.  It  was  thought  that  the  sea  would  cure  his  tendency 
to  frolic.  The  Naval  Academy  had  not  then  been  estab- 
lished, and  the  customary  training  for  a  career  on  a  man- 
of-war  was  to  gain  experience  in  the  merchant  marine. 
So  in  the  fall  of  1806,  when  Cooper  was  seventeen,  he 
sailed  on  a  merchant  vessel  for  a  year's  cruise,  shipping 
before  the  mast,  and  seeing  not  a  little  hard  service. 
Soon  after  his  return  he  received  a  commission  as  a  mid- 
shipman in  the  regular  navy. 


JAMES   FENIMORE   COOPER  59 

It  was  a  time  of  peace,  although  the  war  with  Great 
Britain  already  was  foreseen.  In  1808  Cooper  was  one  of 
a  party  sent  to  Oswego,  on  Lake  Ontario,  to  build  a  six- 
teen-gun  brig.  In  1809  he  was  left  for  a  while  in  com- 
mand of  the  gunboats  on  Lake  Champlain.  In  the  same 
year  he  was  attached  to  the  "  Wasp,"  then  commanded  by 
Lawrence  —  the  Lawrence  who  was  soon  to  command  the 
"Chesapeake"  in  the  action  with  the  "Shannon,"  and 
who  was  to  die  with  the  immortal  phrase  on  his  lips, 
"  Don't  give  up  the  ship !  "  Although  Cooper  saw  no 
fighting  during  the  three  years  and  a  half  in  which  he 
wore  the  uniform  of  his  country,  he  greatly  increased  his 
store  of  experience,  adding  to  his  knowledge  of  life  before 
the  mast  on  a  merchant  vessel  an  understanding  of  life  on 
the  quarter-deck  of  a  man-of-war,  besides  gaining  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Great  Lakes. 

In  January,  1811,  Cooper  married  a  Miss  De  Lancey, 
with  whom  he  was  to  live  happily  for  more  than  forty 
years.  Apparently  at  the  request  of  his  bride,  he  resigned 
from  the  navy  in  May.  He  dwelt  at  Mamaroneck  in  West- 
chester  county,  New  York,  for  several  years,  at  first  with 
his  wife's  father,  and  then  in  a  hired  house.  In  1817, 
after  a  three  years'  stay  in  Cooperstown,  he  went  back  to 
Westchester,  the  home  of  his  wife's  childhood,  and  there 
he  remained  for  five  years.  Seemingly  content  with  the 
simple  life  of  a  well-to-do  country  gentleman,  Cooper 
reached  the  age  of  thirty  without  any  attempt  at  author- 
ship —  without  even  the  hankering  after  pen  and  ink 
which  is  the  characteristic  of  most  predestined  authors. 
The  novelist  flowers  late ;  Scott  was  forty-three  when  his 
first  novel,  "  Waverley "  was  published  ;  and  Hawthorne 
was  forty-six  when  the  "  Scarlet  Letter "  appeared  ;  but 
they  had  been  writing  from  their  boyhood. 


60  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Cooper's  entry  into  authorship  was  almost  accidental. 
Reading  some  cheap  British  novel,  he  was  seized  with  the 
idea  that  he  could  do  as  well  himself ;  and  the  result  was 
his  first  book,  "  Precaution,"  published  late  in  1820.  "  Pre- 
caution "  was  an  imitation  of  the  average  British  novel  of 
that  time  ;  it  had  merit  equal  to  that  of  most  of  its  models  ; 
it  was  a  tale  of  life  in  England,  and  there  was  nothing  to 
show  that  its  author  was  not  an  Englishman.  Indeed, 
when  the  book  was  republished  in  London,  it  was  reviewed 
with  no  suspicion  of  its  American  authorship. 

That  Cooper,  a  most  loyal  and  ardent  American,  should 
write  a  second-hand  story  of  this  sort,  shows  how  complete 
was  the  colonial  dependence  of  the  United  States  on  Great 
Britain  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  —  so 
far  at  least  as  letters  were  concerned.  American  litera- 
ture did  not  exist.  No  one  had  yet  declared  that  the  one 
thing  out  of  which  an  American  literature  could  be  made 
was  American  life.  When  Cooper's  "  Precaution "  was 
written,  Irving's  "Sketch  Book  "  was  being  published  in 
parts;  it  was  still  incomplete,  and  half  of  the  sketches  in 
the  book  were  from  English  subjects. 

Yet  it  seems  to  have  struck  Cooper  that  if  he  did  not 
fail  with  a  novel  describing  British  life,  of  which  he  knew 
little,  he  might  succeed  with  a  novel  describing  Ameri- 
can life,  of  which  he  knew  much.  "  Waverley"  had  been 
published  in  1814,  and  in  the  next  six  years  had  appeared 
eight  others  of  the  "  Scotch  novels,"  as  they  were  called  ; 
and  in  the  very  year  of  Cooper's  first  book,  Scott  had 
crossed  the  Border  and  produced  in  "  Ivanhoe  "  really  the 
first  English  historical  novel,  applying  the  method  of  the 
anonymous  Scotch  stories  to  an  English  theme.  Cooper 
perceived  that  the  same  method  could  be  applied  to  an 
American  historical  theme ;  and  in  the  "  Spy,"  which 


62  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

was  published  in  1821,  he  gave  us  the  first  American 
historical  novel. 

The  "  Spy  "  is  a  story  of  the  Revolution,  and  its  scene  is 
laid  in  the  Westchester  which  Cooper  knew  so  well,  and 
which  had  been  a  neutral  ground,  harried  in  turn  by  the 
British  and  the  Americans  :  the  "Cowboys"  and  the  "Skin- 
ners." The  time  and  the  place  were  well  chosen,  and  they 
almost  sufficed  of  themselves  to  lend  romance  to  any  ad- 
ventures the  author  might  describe ;  and  even  better 
chosen  was  the  central  figure,  '  Harvey  Birch/  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  effective  of  romantic  characters.  To 
the  Spy  himself,  mysterious  but  winning,  was  chiefly  due 
the  instant  success  —  and  the  success  of  the  story  was 
extraordinary,  not  only  in  the  United  States  at  first,  and  a 
few  months  later  in  Great  Britain,  but  on  the  continent  of 
Europe.  It  was  translated  into  French  by  the  translator 
of  the  Waverley  novels  ;  and  it  was  afterward  translated 
into  most  of  the  modern  languages  in  turn. 

Encouraged  by  the  plaudits  of  the  public  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  Cooper  wrote  another  story,  the  "Pioneers," 
published  in  1823.  As  the  "Spy"  was  the  first  American 
historical  novel,  so  was  the  "Pioneers"  the  first  attempt 
to  put  into  fiction  what  is  perhaps  as  worthy  of  record  as 
anything  in  American  history  —  the  life  on  the  frontier 
and  the  character  of  the  backwoodsman.  Here  Cooper 
was  on  firm  ground ;  and  although  he  did  not  fully  realize 
the  opportunity  before  him,  his  book  was  a  revelation  to 
the  rest  of  the  world.  In  it  appeared  for  the  first  time 
one  of  the  very  greatest  characters  in  fiction,  the  old 
woodsman,  Natty  Bumppo  —  the  Leatherstocking  who  was 
to  give  his  name  to  the  series  of  tales  which  to-day  is 
Cooper's  best  monument.  In  this  first  book  we  have  but 
a  faint  sketch  of  the  character  the  author  afterward  worked 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  63 

out  with  loving  care.  Rarely  is  there  a  successful  sequel 
to  a  successful  novel,  but  Cooper  returned  to  Leatherstock- 
ing  again  and  again,  until  the  history  of  his  adventures 
was  complete  in  five  independent  tales,  the  composition  of 
which  extended  over  eighteen  years. 

Leaving  for  the  moment  Cooper's  other  writings,  it  may 
be  well  to  note  here  that  the  "Pioneers"  was  followed  in 
1826  and  1827  by  the  "  Last  of  the  Mohicans"  and  the 
"Prairie,"  and  in  1840  and  1841  by  the  "Pathfinder"  and 
the  "Deerslayer."  This  was  the  order  in  which  they  were 
written,  but  very  different  is  the  order  in  which  they  are 
to  be  read  when  we  wish  to  follow  the  career  of  Natty 
Bumppo  from  the  days  of  his  youth,  and  to  trace  the  de- 
velopment of  his  noble  and  captivating  character.  The 
latest  written  is  the  earliest  to  be  read  in  the  sequence  of 
events  ;  after  the  "  Deerslayer  "  comes  the  "  Last  of  the 
Mohicans,"  followed  by  the  "Pathfinder"  and  then  the 
"Pioneers,"  until  in  the  "Prairie"  the  series  ends  with 
the  death  of  Leatherstocking.  The  five  tales  vary  in  value, 
no  doubt,  but  taken  altogether  they  reveal  a  marvelous  gift 
of  narration,  and  an  extraordinary  fullness  of  invention. 
Merely  as  stories  their  interest  is  unfailing,  while  they  are 
ennobled  by  the  character  of  Natty. 

Even  before  the  publication  of  the  "  Pioneers,"  in  which 
he  introduced  the  American  Indian  into  fiction,  Cooper 
planned  another  story  which  was  as  daring  a  novelty.  In 
1821,  the  author  of  the  Waverley  novels,  then  unascer- 
tained, published  the  "Pirate."  In  Cooper's  presence, 
the  argument  was  advanced  that  Scott  could  not  be  the 
unknown  author,  since  he  was  a  lawyer,  and  this  story 
revealed  a  knowledge  of  the  ocean  such  as  no  landsman 
could  have.  Cooper,  who  had  followed  the  sea  himself, 
maintained  that  the  "  Pirate  "  showed  that  its  author  was 


64  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

not  a  sailor,  since  far  greater  effects  could  have  been  got 
out  of  the  same  materials  if  the  writer  had  been  a  sea- 
farer by  profession.  To  prove  his  point,  Cooper  deter- 
mined to  write  a  sea  story.  Sailors  there  had  been  in 
fiction  before,  but  no  novel  the  scene  of  which  was  laid 
on  the  ocean ;  and  Cooper's  friends  tried  to  convince  him 
that  the  public  at  large  could  not  be  interested  in  a  life  so 
technical  as  the  seaman's. 

But  Cooper  persevered,  and  in  1823  he  published  the 
"Pilot,"  the  first  salt-water  novel  ever  written,  and  to  this 
day  one  of  the  very  best.  Its  nameless  and  mysterious 
hero  was  a  marine  Harvey  Birch ;  obviously  he  had  been 
modeled  upon  the  Paul  Jones  whose  name  is  held  in  terror 
to  this  day  on  the  British  coasts  he  harassed.  In  Long 
Tom  Coffin,  the  Nantucket  whaler,  Cooper  created  the 
only  one  of  his  other  characters  worthy  to  take  place 
beside  Leatherstocking ;  and  Tom,  like  Natty,  is  simple, 
homely,  and  strong.  In  writing  the  "  Pilot,"  Cooper  evi- 
dently had  in  mind  the  friends  who  thought  it  impossible 
to  interest  the  general  reader  in  a  tale  of  the  ocean,  and  he 
laid  some  of  his  scenes  on  land ;  but  it  is  these  very  pas- 
sages which  are  tedious  to-day,  while  the  scenes  at  sea 
keep  their  freshness  and  have  still  unfailing  interest. 

In  his  second  sea  tale,  the  "  Red  Rover,"  published  in 
1829,  Cooper  avoided  this  blunder;  after  the  story  is 
fairly  started  the  action  passes  continuously  on  the  water, 
and  the  interest  is  therefore  unbroken.  The  "  Red  Rover  " 
may  be  said  to  be  wholly  a  tale  of  the  ocean,  as  the  "  Last 
of  the  Mohicans  "  is  wholly  a  tale  of  the  forest.  Whether 
he  was  on  the  green  billows  or  under  the  green  trees, 
Cooper  was  completely  at  home;  he  drew  from  his  own 
experience  ;  he  told  what  he  had  seen,  what  he  knew.  He 
wrote  ten  sea  tales  in  all,  of  which  the  "Two  Admirals" 


JAMES   FENIMORE   COOPER  65 

and  "  Wing-and-Wing,"  both  published  in  1842,  are  the 
best  after  the  "Pilot"  and  the  "Red  Rover."  In  1839 
he  sent  forth  his  "  History  of  the  United  States  Navy," 
to  this  day  the  only  authority  for  the  period  of  which  it 
treats. 

It  is  by  the  "Spy,"  by  the  five  "Leatherstocking  Tales," 
and  by  the  four  or  five  foremost  of  the  "  Sea  Tales " 
that  Cooper's  fame  must  be  maintained.  But  he  wrote 
many  other  novels,  most  of  them  of  little  importance. 
Some  of  them,  like  the  "Wept  of  Wish-ton-wish,"  were 
American  in  subject ;  and  some  were  European,  like  the 
"Bravo"  and  the  "Headsman."  These  last  were  the 
result  of  a  long  visit  Cooper  paid  to  Europe,  extending 
from  1826  to  1833.  In  Paris  he  had  the  pleasure  of  meet- 
ing Scott ;  and  in  Paris  also  he  had  the  pleasure  of  defend- 
ing his  country  against  ignorant  insults. 

There  is  no  need  now  to  deny  that  Cooper  seems  to 
have  enjoyed  a  dispute,  and  that  he  never  went  out  of  his 
way  to  avoid  a  quarrel.  After  he  returned  to  the  United 
States  he  became  involved  in  numberless  arguments  of  all 
sorts,  personal,  journalistic,  literary,  historical.  He  was 
frank,  opinionated,  and  absolutely  certain  that  he  always 
had  right  on  his  side.  Sure  of  his  ground,  he  bore  him- 
self bravely  and  battled  stanchly  to  repel  any  attacks  he 
had  invited. 

His  private  life  was  most  fortunate.  His  home  was 
happy,  and  his  wife  and  children  were  devoted  to  him. 
He  had  many  friends  ;  and  his  best  friends  were  the  best 
citizens  of  New  York.  When  he  moved  to  that  city,  in 
1822,  he  founded  a  club,  called  sometimes  after  him,  but 
more  generally  the  "Bread  and  Cheese  Lunch."  To  this 
club  belonged  Chancellor  Kent ;  the  poets  Fitz-Greene 
Halleck  and  William  Cullen  Bryant ;  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  the 

AMER.  LIT.,  —  5 


66  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

inventor  of  the  telegraph ;  and  other  representatives  of  the 
arts,  the  sciences,  and  the  learned  professions.  Before 
Cooper  went  to  Europe  in  1826  these  friends  gave  him  a 
public  dinner,  at  which  Chancellor  Kent  presided  and  at. 
which  De  Witt  Clinton,  the  governor  of  the  State,  Win- 
field  Scott,  the  head  of  the  army,  and  Charles  King,  the 
future  president  of  Columbia  College,  were  present.  After 
his  return  from  Europe  in  1833,  tne  same  group  of  distin- 
guished men  tendered  to  him  another  banquet,  which  he 
declined. 

Nearly  a  score  of  years  after,  when  he  was  sixty  years 
old,  and  when  he  had  lived  through  the  storm  of  abuse 
which  he  had  injudiciously  aroused,  his  friends  again  made 
ready  to  give  him  a  public  testimonial  of  their  regard  ;  but 
before  the  arrangements  were  perfected  he  died.  He  had 
retired  to  Cooperstown  years  before,  and  there  with  his 
family  he  had  been  happy,  superintending  work  on  his 
farm,  and  writing  when  he  chose.  His  death  took  place 
on  September  14,  1851,  at  Cooperstown,  to  which  he  had 
been  taken  as  an  infant  three  score  years  before.  Had  he 
lived  another  day,  he  would  have  completed  his  sixty-second 
year.  His  wife  outlived  him  less  than  five  months. 

A  few  days  after  his  death  a  meeting  of  prominent  men 
was  held,  over  which  Washington  Irving  presided,  and  as 
a  result  of  this,  William  Cullen  Bryant  was  asked  to  deliver 
a  discourse  on  the  life  and  writings  of  Cooper.  This  ora- 
tion, spoken  early  in  the  next  year,  remained  the  best 
account  of  the  novelist  until  the  admirable  biography  in 
the  American  Men  of  Letters  series  appeared  in  1882. 

A  consideration  of  Cooper's  place  in  English  literature 
involves  a  comparison  with  Scott.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Scotchman  was  the  earlier  of  the  two ;  it  was  he  who 
widened  the  field  of  the  romance ;  it  was  he  who  pushed 


JAMES   FENIMORE   COOPER  67 

the  novel  to  the  front  and  made  fiction  the  successful  rival 
of  poetry  and  the  drama ;  it  was  he  who  showed  all  men 
how  an  historical  novel  might  be  written.  Cooper  is  the 
foremost  of  Scott's  followers,  no  doubt,  and  in  skill  of  nar- 
ration, in  the  story-telling  faculty,  in  the  gift  of  imparting 
interest  to  the  incidents  of  a  tale,  Cooper  at  his  best  is  not 
inferior  to  Scott  at  his  best.  But  Scott  had  far  more 
humor  and  far  more  insight  into  human  nature. 

Like  Scott,  Cooper  was  a  writer  of  romance  ;  that  is 
to  say,  he  was  an  optimist,  an  idealizer  —  one  who  seeks 
to  see  only  the  best,  and  who  refuses  to  see  what  is  bad. 
Scott  chose  to  present  only  the  bright  side  of  chivalry, 
and  to  make  the  Middle  Ages  far  pleasanter  than  they 
could  have  been  in  reality.  Probably  Scott  knew  that 
the  picture  he  gave  of  England  under  Richard  the  Lion- 
Hearted  was  misleading ;  certainly  he  knew  that  he  was 
not  telling  the  whole  truth.  Cooper's  red  Indians  are 
quite  as  real  as  Scott's  black  knights,  to  say  the  least. 
Cooper's  Indians  are  true  to  life,  absolutely  true  to  life  — 
so  far  as  they  go.  Cooper  told  the  truth  about  them  — 
but  he  did  not  tell  the  whole  truth.  He  put  forward  the 
exception  as  the  type,  sometimes ;  and  he  always  sup- 
pressed some  of  the  red  man's  ugliest  traits.  Cooper  tells 
us  that  the  Indian  is  cruel  as  Scott  tells  us  that  a  tourna- 
ment was  often  fatal ;  but  he  does  not  convey  to  us  any 
realization  of  the  ingrained  barbarity  and  cruelty  which 
was  perhaps  the  chief  characteristic  of  the  Indian  warrior. 
This  side  of  the  red  man  is  kept  in  the  shadow,  while  his 
bravery,  his  manliness,  his  skill,  his  many  noble  qualities, 
are  dwelt  on  at  length. 

Time  may  be  trusted  safely  to  make  a  final  selection 
from  any  author's  works,  however  voluminous  they  may  be, 
or  however  unequal.  Cooper  died  almost  exactly  in  the 


68  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

middle  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  already  it  is  the 
"Spy  "  and  the  "  Leatherstocking  Tales"  and  four  or  five 
of  the  "  Sea  Tales  "  which  survive,  because  they  deserve  to 
survive,  because  they  were  at  once  new  and  true  when  they 
were  written,  because  they  remain  to-day  the  best  of  their 
kind.  Cooper's  men  of  the  sea,  and  his  men  of  the  forest 
and  the  plain,  are  alive  now,  though  other  fashions  in  fic- 
tion have  come  and  gone.  Other  novelists  have  a  more 
finished  art  nowadays,  but  no  one  of  them  all  succeeds 
more  completely  in  doing  what  he  tried  to  do  than  did 
Cooper  at  his  best.  And  he  did  a  great  service  to  Ameri- 
can literature  by  showing  how  fit  for  fiction  were  the 
scenes,  the  characters,  and  the  history  of  his  native  land. 

QUESTIONS.  —  Describe  the  conditions  existing  in  western  New 
York  at  the  birth  of  the  first  American  novelist. 

Tell  the  story  of  Cooper's  early  life  and  training  on  land  and  on  sea. 
What  changes  in  his  way  of  living  followed  upon  his  marriage? 

What  circumstances  attending  upon  Cooper's  entrance  upon  a  liter- 
ary career  show  the  dependent  position  of  American  literature  ? 

Describe  the  first  American  historical  novel. 

Describe  the  series  of  fictions  of  which  Natty  Bumppo  is  the  hero. 

Declare  the  circumstances  under  which  the  first  sea  tale  was  written. 

Compare  Cooper's  relations  with  the  general  public  with  his  associa- 
tions in  private  life. 

Compare  Cooper  with  Scott. 

What  were  Cooper's  great  services  to  literature? 

NOTE.  —  There  are  many  editions  of  Cooper's  stories.  The  best  is  that  con- 
taining introductions  by  his  daughter  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  32  vols.,  $i  a  vol.). 

The  only  biography  is  that  of  Prof.  T.  R.  Lounsbury  in  the  American  Men  of 
Letters  series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  $1.25). 

For  criticism,  see  Bryant's  Oration  (in  his  "Essays,  Tales,  and  Orations"); 
Lowell's  "  Fable  for  Critics  "  ;  Thackeray's  "  On  a  Peal  of  Bells  "  (in  "  Roundabout 
Papers")  ;  and  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "American  Literature"). 

For  a  discussion  of  "  Colonialism  in  the  United  States,"  see  Mr.  H.  C.  Lodge's 
"  Studies  in  History." 


VI     WILLIAM    CULLEN    BRYANT 

WASHINGTON  IRVING  and  James  Fenimore  Cooper  were 
New  Yorkers  both  by  descent  and  by  residence,  but  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  who  lived  at  the  same  time,  though  a  New 
Yorker  by  residence,  was  of  the  purest  New  England 
descent.  Like  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  forerunner  of 
Irving  and  Cooper,  Bryant  left  the  town  of  his  birth  to  be- 
come the  foremost  citizen  of  a  great  city.  He  was  born 
in  the  village  of  Cummington,  in  western  Massachusetts, 
November  3,  1794,  so  he  was  eleven  years  younger  than 
Irving  and  five  years  younger  than  Cooper.  He  survived 

69 


70  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Irving  nearly  twenty  years,  and  died  in  New  York  in  1878. 
When  he  first  saw  the  light,  the  United  States  were  only 
fifteen  in  number,  and  Washington,  the  first  President,  was 
still  at  the  head  of  the  little  nation.  He  lived  to  see  the 
celebration  of  the  hundred  years  of  our  independence,  and 
the  admission  of  the  thirty-eighth  state. 

That  he  should  have  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty-three  is 
the  more  remarkable,  as  he  had  a  feeble  frame  and  no  great 
stock  of  strength.  As  a  young  child  he  was  "  puny  and  very 
delicate  in  body,  and  of  a  delicate  nervous  organization." 
From  the  beginning  he  was  forced  to  save  himself  in  every 
way,  and  to  order  his  life  regularly,  denying  himself  many 
things  which  others  used  freely.  To  the  last  year  of  his 
life  he  was  regular  in  his  habits,  rising  betimes,  eating  little, 
exercising  much,  and  going  to  bed  early.  From  his  earliest 
youth  he  had  himself  under  almost  perfect  control.  In 
his  life,  as  in  his  poetry,  his  simplicity  was  almost  severe. 

His  father  was 'a  country  doctor,  and  also  represented 
his  native  town  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature.  His 
mother  was  descended  from  John  Alden  and  his  wife  Pris- 
cilla,  whose  courtship  has  been  told  in  verse  by  Longfellow, 
another  of  their  descendants.  Bryant  was  ready  for  col- 
lege very  young,  learning  Latin  from  Vergil's  "^Eneid" 
and  Greek  from  the  Greek  Testament.  He  began  to 
make  verses  very  early,  and  when  scarce  ten  years  old,  so 
one  of  his  biographers  tells  us,  he  "  received  a  ninepenny 
coin  from  his  grandfather  for  a  rimed  version  of  the  first 
chapter  of  the  book  of  Job."  Even  when  he  was  but  a  little 
boy  he  wished  to  be  a  poet.  He  knew  by  heart  the  rude 
verses  of  Watts's  hymns  and  the  finished  couplets  of  the 
English  poet  Pope.  It  was  from  Pope  that  he  learned 
the  art  of  verse ;  and  Pope  was  no  bad  teacher,  for  he  was 
an  artist  in  rime  and  rhythm. 


WILLIAM    CULLEN    BRYANT  J\ 

In  the  fall  of  1810,  Bryant,  then  not  quite  sixteen,  en- 
tered the  sophomore  class  at  Williams  College.  At  the  end 
of  the  collegiate  year  he  asked  for  and  received  an  honor- 
able dismissal  from  Williams,  intending  to  enter  the  junior 
class  at  Yale.  But  his  father  could  not  afford  to  support 
him  at  New  Haven,  and  to  his  lasting  regret  the  poet  was 
deprived  of  the  profit  of  a  full  college  course.  He  spent 
the  summer  at  home,  working  on  the  farm,  and  reading 


Bryant's  Home,  Cummington,  Mass. 

diligently  the  books  of  his  father's  library,  medical  and 
poetical.  A  few  days  before  January  I,  1812,  he  began  the 
study  of  law  ;  and  to  law  his  attention  was  give'n  for  more 
than  ten  years.  He  did  not  like  the  law,  and  he  gave  it 
up  at  the  first  opportunity  ;  but  while  it  was  his  calling  he 
did  his  work  loyally  and  thoroughly. 

The  North  American  Review  was  founded  in  1815  by 
a  little  group  of  Bostonians,  of  whom  Richard  Henry 
Dana  was  one  ;  it  was  a  magazine  like  the  British  reviews 


OF  THB 

CTNIVERSITY 


72  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

of  the  time.  To  this  review  certain  of  Bryant's  poems 
were  sent ;  and  when  one  of  these  was  read  aloud  at  a 
meeting  of  the  editors,  Dana  smiled  and  said,  "  You  have 
been  imposed  upon.  No  one  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
is  capable  of  writing  such  verse." 

When  they  had  assured  themselves  that  they  had  not 
been  imposed  upon,  the  editors  published  two  of  the  poems 
in  the  North  American  Review  for  September,  1817.  One 
was  called  "  Thanatopsis,"  and  it  had  been  composed  six 
years  before,  when  the  poet  was  not  yet  eighteen.  It  was, 
as  a  critic  has  well  said,  "not  only  the  finest  poem  which 
had  been  produced  on  this  continent,  but  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  poems  ever  produced  at  such  an  early  age." 
Since  its  original  appearance  in  print,  the  author  has  re- 
vised it  and  improved  it ;  but  from  the  first  it  was  seen 
to  be  among  the  foremost  moral  poems  of  our  language. 
Though  the  poet  might  afterward  equal  it,  he  could  never 
surpass  it.  In  the  same  number  of  the  Review  appeared 
also  his  verses  now  known  as  "An  Inscription  for  the 
Entrance  to  a  Wood."  In  1818  the  Review  published 
Bryant's  "  Lines  to  a  Waterfowl."  Thereafter  there  was 
no  doubt  that  the  English  language  had  gained  a  new  poet. 

Dr.  Bryant  died  in  1820,  and  a  year  later  the  poet,  being 
then  twenty-six  years  of  age,  married  Miss  Fairchild.  In 
1822  Bryant  was  invited  to  deliver  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
poem  at  Harvard,  and  he  wrote  the  "  Ages,"  which 
pleased  its  hearers  so  much  that  the  poet  yielded  to  their 
requests,  and  gathered  his  scattered  verses  into  a  little 
volume  —  a  thin  book,  but  containing  that  which  is  des- 
tined to  a  long  life  in  literature. 

This  earlier  poetry  of  Bryant's  has  for  us  a  double  inter- 
est, that  due  to  its  own  merit,  which  is  undoubted,  and 
that  due  to  its  influence  upon  other  native  poets  in  open- 


WILLIAM   CULLEN    BRYANT  73 

ing  their  eyes  to  the  life  about  them.  In  this  last  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  it  is  very  hard  for  us  to  under- 
stand how  completely  American  authors  depended  upon 
Great  Britain  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century.  Not 
only  was  everything  judged  by  British  standards  —  every- 
thing was  seen  through  British  spectacles. 

Bryant  was  the  first  American  who  discovered  that  the 
flowers  and  the  birds  of  New  England  were  not  those  of 
old  England.  He  took  this  discovery  to  heart,  and  acted 
upon  it  always;  and  every  later  American  poet  has  fol- 
lowed his  example.  After  Bryant's  first  volume  of  poems 
appeared,  the  nightingale  became  as  silent  in  American 
verse  as  it  had  always  been  in  American  woods.  Bryant 
was  the  earliest  of  our  American  authors  to  tell  in  poetry 
the  facts  of  our  own  natural  history.  He  always  kept 
close  watch  on  nature  :  when  only  twelve  years  old,  he 
wrote  verses  about  the  eclipse  of  1806.  "Thanatopsis " 
is  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  loving  tenderness  toward  nature. 
The  "  Yellow  Violet,"  written  in  1814,  is  probably  the  first 
poem  devoted  to  an  actual  American  flower  ;  and  it  reveals 
anew  the  poet's  ability  to  see  for  himself  what  no  poet 
had  noted  before,  as  in  the  final  line  of  this  stanza,  for  ex- 
ample : —  /  /  /  / 
Thy  parent  sun,  who  bade  thee  view 
Pale  skies,  and  chilling  moisture  sip, 
Has  bathed  thee  in  his  own  bright  hue, 
And  streaked  with  jet  thy  glowing  lip. 

In  1825  Bryant  gave  up  the  law  finally,  resolved  to  earn 
his  living  by  his  pen.  He  removed  to  New  York,  where 
he  was  to  reside  for  the  next  half  century.  He  was  ap- 
pointed editor  of  the  New  York  Review,  to  which  he  con- 
tributed many  poems,  among  them  that  beginning:  — 

The  melancholy  clays  are  come,  the  saddest  of  the  year. 


WILLIAM   CULLEN    BRYANT  75 

One  of  the  poems  by  other  authors  which  he  published 
in  the  pages  of  the  New  York  Review  was  the  "Marco 
Bozzaris"  of  Fitz-Greene  Halleck.  But  the  Review  did 
not  prosper.  Before  it  died  Bryant  had  become  an  edito- 
rial writer  on  the  Evening  Post.  After  the  New  York 
Review  ceased  to  be  published,  Bryant  joined  two  friends 
in  editing  an  annual,  called  the  Talisman,  which  made 
three  appearances  only.  In  1829  the  editor  in  chief  of  the 
Evening  Post  died,  and  Bryant  was  promoted  to  his  place. 
He  already  owned  one  eighth  of  the  paper,  and  he  was 
now  enabled  to  increase  his  holding  to  one  half.  This 
share  he  retained  to  his  death,  and  it  became  increasingly 
profitable  as  the  years  went  by.  For  the  last  half  of  his 
long  life  Bryant  had  an  assured  income  from  property  in 
his  own  control.  He  had  to  work  hard,  but  he  was  his 
own  master. 

Bryant  gave  up  law  for  journalism  at  a  time  when  there 
was  still  an  old-fashioned  primness  among  literary  people  : 
it  was  a  time  when  the  law  was  commonly  personified  as 
"Themis,"  when  authors  were  called  the  "literati,"  when 
writing  verses  was  termed  "toying  with  the  Muses,"  and 
when  there  were  not  a  few  other  affectations.  But  it  was 
a  time  when  American  authors  were  beginning  to  write 
prose  which  is  still  read  with  pleasure.  There  was  a 
pleasanter  and  more  artistic  atmosphere  in  New  York, 
where  many  authors  resided,  than  in  any  other  American 
city.  New  York,  already  marked  as  the  business  metrop- 
olis of  the  country,  was  also  the  literary  center  of  the 
Union  when  Bryant  moved  to  it.  And  by  the  authors 
and  artists  of  New  York  Bryant  was  made  welcome.  He 
lectured  before  the  newly  organized  National  Academy  of 
Design,  and  he  became  a  member  of  the  Cooper  Club; 
better  known  as  the  "Bread  and  Cheese  Lunch." 


76  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Although  American  literature  had  thus  begun,  it  was 
still  in  its  infancy.  The  reading  public  was  very  small, 
and  the  magazines  were  few  and  struggling.  One  could 
hardly  earn  a  living  as  a  man  of  letters;  to  support  a  family 
by  literature  was  impossible.  Irving  was  a  bachelor, 
and  Cooper  had  means  of  his  own.  Besides,  literature 
at  best  is  better  as  a  staff  than  it  is  as  a  crutch.  There  is 
no  doubt,  therefore,  that  Bryant  did  well  in  relying  on  jour- 
nalism for  his  bread,  although  he  might  hope  now  and 
again  to  pay  for  his  butter  by  literature.  Both  the  editor 
and  the  author  earns  his  living  by  his  pen,  yet  there  is 
little  or  no  other  likeness  between  them.  The  author  says 
once  for  all  what  he  has  to  say,  and  he  says  it  as  best  he 
can ;  while  the  journalist,  if  he  says  anything  once,  must 
repeat  it  again  and  again,  since  that  is  his  chief  method  of 
producing  his  effect.  Then,  again,  the  author  tries  to  find 
subjects  of  eternal  interest,  ever  fresh  and  never  stale ; 
while  the  journalist  is  condemned  to  the  perpetual  discus- 
sion of  timely  topics  of  present  importance.  Perhaps  it  is 
not  too  much  to  suggest  that  the  habit  of  journalism  tends 
to  unfit  a  man  for  literature. 

In  journalism,  as  in  authorship,  character  tells  for  as 
much  as  ability  ;  and  upon  the  newspaper  he  conducted 
Bryant  imposed  his  own  lofty  ideals.  He  had  definite 
political  principles,  and  these  he  applied  and  advocated, 
however  much  their  unpopularity  might  impair  the  profits 
of  his  paper.  He  held  fast  to  his  principles,  even  when 
they  forced  him  to  leave  the  political  party  with  which  he 
had  hitherto  been  acting.  It  was  his  belief,  for  example, 
that  the  interference  of  government  in  the  affairs  of  the 
citizen  did  more  harm  than  good ;  and  it  is  upon  this  ques- 
tion of  more  or  less  governmental  control  of  private  busi- 
ness that  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  divided  into 


WILLIAM   CULLEN    BRYANT  77 

parties  in  the  past  and  will  divide  again  in  the  future.  Like 
Franklin,  Bryant  preached  the  doctrine  of  self  help. 

But  although  as  a  journalist  Bryant  took  high  ground 
and  defended  it  firmly,  he  was  never  carried  away  by  the 
fury  of  partisan  discussion.  In  his  editorial  writings,  as 
in  his  poetry,  the  tone  is  full  of  dignity.  Calm  in  his 
strength,  he  was  both  temperate  in  expressing  his  opinions 
and  good-tempered.  He  fought  fairly  and  he  respected  his 
adversary.  He  was  never  a  snarling  critic  either  of  men 
or  of  measures.  He  elevated  the  level  of  the  American 
newspaper,  but  it  was  by  his  practice,  not  by  his  preaching. 
He  was  choice  in  his  own  use  of  words,  and  there  was  in 
the  office  of  the  Evening  Post  a  list  of  words  and  phrases 
not  allowed  in  its  pages.  But  he  was  not  a  stickler  for 
trifles,  and  he  had  no  fondness  for  petty  pedantries. 

The  editorial  articles  which  Bryant  wrote  for  his  paper 
day  by  day  for  more  than  fifty  years  have  never  been  col- 
lected, and  of  course  they  never  will  be,  though  they  are 
a  history  of  the  United  States  during  the  half-century 
which  no  student  of  the  times  can  afford  to  neglect.  The 
letters  written  to  the  Evening  Post,  when  he  was  on  his 
travels,  have  most  of  them  been  reprinted.  He  made  a 
tour  on  the  prairies  in  1832,  and  in  1834  he  went  to 
Europe  to  stay  a  year  and  a  half,  spending  his  time  in 
France,  Italy,  and  Germany.  In  1845  ne  crossed  the 
ocean  a  second  time,  and  paid  his  first  visit  to  England. 
In  later  years  he  went  to  Europe  four  times  more,  once 
going  on  to  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land.  He  also  visited 
Cuba  and  Mexico.  In  1850  he  gathered  the  best  of  the 
letters  he  had  sent  to  the  Evening  Post  from  abroad  and 
published  them  in  a  volume,  as  the  "  Letters  of  a  Trav- 
eler"; and  in  1869  he  made  a  second  collection  called 
"  Letters  from  the  East."  The  interest  of  these  two  books 


78  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

is  due  rather  to  their  author  than  to  their  own  merits, 
although  these  are  not  slight ;  anything  Bryant  wrote  had 
a  value  of  its  own ;  but  he  lacked  the  ease,  the  lightness, 
the  familiarity  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  letters  of  the 
ideal  traveler.  He  was  a  poet ;  and  his  best  work  was  in 
verse,  not  in  prose. 

And  yet  his  newspaper  letters,  and  a  few  tales  in  the 
Talisman,  and  a  few  criticisms  in  the  early  Reviews,  do  not 
make  up  the  total  of  his  prose  works.  Bryant  was  also  a 
public  speaker.  Upon  a  score  of  solemn  occasions  the 
poet  was  the  orator  of  the  day ;  and  these  addresses  are 
preserved  in  a  volume  of  the  collected  edition  of  his  works. 
At  the  death  of  Cooper,  Bryant  was  invited  to  deliver  a 
memorial  oration,  in  which  he  paid  to  his  departed  friend 
the  full  measure  of  laudation,  not  overpraising,  but  care- 
fully valuing,  and  setting  the  fame  of  the  novelist  upon 
firm  foundations.  At  the  death  of  Irving,  and  of  Halleck, 
Bryant  was  again  called  upon,  and  he  again  responded 
with  speeches  worthy  not  only  of  the  subject  but  also  of 
himself. 

More  than  once  he  was  the  speaker  on  great  civic  occa- 
sions when  th'e  citizens  of  New  York  needed  a  mouthpiece. 
Yet  he  was  not  a  born  orator;  he  lacked  the  physical 
strength,  the  sweep  of  gesture,  the  persuasive  voice,  the 
contagious  enthusiasm,  the  kindling  fire,  which  make  up 
the  gift  of  eloquence.  His  addresses  were  always  written 
out  carefully ;  they  were  always  prepared  with  a  full  appre- 
ciation of  the  demands  of  the  occasion,  and  with  a  full 
understanding  of  his  own  limitations  ;  they  were  always 
stately  and  impressive,  yet  were  never  stiff  or  labored. 

The  fame  of  the  orator,  and  of  the  traveler,  and  of 
the  journalist,  perishes  swiftly,  while  that  of  the  poet 
endures.  Bryant  did  not  allow  his  duty  to  his  newspaper 


WILLIAM   CULLEN   BRYANT  79 

wholly  to  absorb  his  time.  To  poetry  he  was  devoted  his 
whole  life  long,  although  the  body  of  his  verse  is  not  great. 
In  1831  he  published  a  volume  of  his  poetry  containing 
four  score  more  poems  than  had  appeared  in  the  collection 
of  ten  years  before.  He  sent  a  copy  of  this  to  Irving,  who 
procured  its  republication  in  London,  and  who,  in  def- 
erence to  British  readers,  softened  the  line  which  declares 

The  British  soldier  trembles 
When  Marion's  name  is  told. 

More  than  thirty  years  later,  in  1863,  Bryant  published 
what  may  be  called  the  second  volume  of  his  poetry,  to 
which  he  gave  the  simple  title  of  "Thirty  Poems." 
Among  these  later  poems  were  the  defiant  refrain  of  "  Not 
Yet,"  and  the  resolute  stanzas,  "  Our  Country's  Call," 
written  in  the  dark  days  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion 
and  nobly  eulogized  in  Lowell's  "  On  Board  the  Seventy- 
Six."  His  later  verses  were  added  in  successive  editions 
of  his  complete  poems. 

In  .the  course  of  his  travels  and  of  his  studies  he  had 
made  himself  familiar  with  French  and  German,  Spanish 
and  Italian,  while  he  had  deepened  his  knowledge  of  Greek 
and  Latin.  He  was  fond  of  translating  from  the  modern 
poets  of  other  lands,  and  in  this  delicate  art  he  was  fairly 
successful,  although  he  lacked  the  sure  touch  of  Long- 
fellow. In  the  fall  of  1863  he  translated  the  fifth  book  of 
the  "Odyssey."  Encouraged  by  the  way  in  which  it  was 
received,  he  turned  to  the  "  Iliad  "  and  began  to  translate 
passages  of  that. 

In  the  summer  of  1866  his  wife  died,  and  the  poet  felt 
her  loss  keenly ;  it  unfitted  him  for  severe  work,  and  yet 
made  it  advisable  that  he  should  keep  occupied.  He  again 
turned  to  Homer,  and  in  1870  he  published  his  complete 


80  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

translation  of  the  "  Iliad,"  following  it  two  years  later  with 
a  version  of  the  "  Odyssey."  Bryant  was  successful  in 
giving  the  impression  of  ease  and  of  elevation,  and  his 
version  of  Homer  has  generally  been  accepted  as  one  of 
the  best  of  the  many  recent  metrical  translations. 

Bryant  had  long  passed  three  score  years  and  ten 
when  he  finished  his  task  of  turning  the  great  Greek  poem 
into  English  verse.  He  was  hale  in  his  old  age,  exercising 
regularly,  eating  sparingly,  taking  great  care  of  himself, 
and  retaining  full  possession  of  his  powers.  At  the  age  of 
eighty-four  he  delivered  an  address  in  Central  Park  at  the 
unveiling  of  the  bust  of  Mazzini,  the  Italian  patriot.  The 
day  was  hot,  and  he  spoke  with  slight  shelter  from  the 
sun.  After  the  ceremony  he  walked  across  the  Park  to  a 
friend's  house,  but  as  he  mounted  the  steps  he  fell  back 
suddenly.  He  was  taken  to  his  own  home,  where  he 
lingered  for  a  fortnight,  dying  June  12,  1878. 

Bryant's  place  in  the  history  of  American  literature  is 
easy  to  declare:  he  was  a  pioneer  and  leader.  He  was  the 
earliest  poet  of  nature  as  it  is  here  in  the  United  States, 
seeing  it  freshly  for  himself  and  not  repeating  at  second 
hand  what  British  poets  had  been  saying  about  nature  as 
it  is  in  the  British  Isles.  The  love  he  bore  to  nature  was 
almost  a  passion,  like  the  love  he  had  for  his  country. 
His  verse  is  stately  and  reserved,  sometimes  perilously 
near  to  frigidity.  Unfailingly  elevated  as  it  is,  the  reader 
sometimes  finds  himself  longing  in  vain  for  a  playful 
stroke  or  a  touch  of  humor.  There  is  a  lack  of  light- 
ness in  Bryant's  poetry  —  perhaps  even  a  lack  of  ease. 
Yet  there  is  a  lyric  swing  in  the  "  Song  of  Marion's  Men  " 
and  a  singing  quality  to  the  "Planting  of  the  Apple  Tree." 

It  is  not  fair  to  suggest  that  Bryant's  muse  always  sits 
lonely  on  a  chill  and  lofty  peak.  No  doubt  there  is  often 


WILLIAM   CULLEN    BRYANT 


8l 


an  absence  of  warmth  —  due  perhaps  to  the  constant  self- 
control  which  had  become  second  nature.  Bryant  likened 
George  Washington  to  the  frozen  Hudson  flowing  full  and 
mighty  beneath  its  shield  of  ice  ;  and  one  could  fairly 
apply  the  figure  to  the  poet  himself.  He,  too,  had  a  grand 
simplicity  of  style.  There  is  a  stern  and  determined  vigor 


Bryant's  Home,  Roslyn,  L.I. 

in  certain  of  his  stanzas  that  Washington  might  have 
enjoyed.  Take  the  famous  quatrain  from  the  "Battle- 
Field,"  for  example,  — 

Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again : 

The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers : 
But  Error,  wounded,  writhes  in  pain 

And  dies  among  his  worshipers. 

His  hatred  of  shams  and  gauds  kept  his  verse  simple  and 
clear  —  undefiled  by  jingling  conceits  or  petty  pretti- 

AMER.    LIT.  —  6 


82  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

nesses  ;  it  is  sustained  nearly  always  at  the  same  high  level. 
Although  his  best  poems  are  not  many,  he  wrote  surpris- 
ingly little  that  fell  below  his  average.  It  is  said  that  an 
old  young  man  makes  a  young  old  man.  Certainly  the 
saying  was  true  of  Bryant  as  a  poet :  he  was  mature 
very  early  in  life  and  he  kept  his  freshness  to  the  end. 
"  Thanatopsis  "  was  written  when  he  was  young,  and  the 
"  Flood  of  Years "  when  he  was  old ;  and  a  comparison 
shows  that  there  has  been  no  growth  :  the  thought  is  as 
deep  in  the  first  poem  as  in  the  second,  and  the  expression 
is  as  free  and  as  noble. 

QUESTIONS.  —  Discuss  briefly  :  (i)  Bryant's  early  acquaintance  with 
verse  ;  (2)  his  career  as  a  student. 

Comment  upon  Bryant's  first  four  important  poems.  What  double 
interest  have  these  poems  for  us  ? 

What  is  to  be  said  for  and  against  journalism  as  a  calling  for  a  per- 
son of  literary  tastes?  What  was  Bryant's  ideal  in  journalism? 

What  portion  of  his  journalistic  writing  did  he  care  to  preserve? 

What  is  to  be  said  of  Bryant  as  a  public  speaker? 

What  is  Bryant's  place  in  the  history  of  American  literature? 

What  is  one  criticism  most  likely  to  be  made  upon  Bryant's  poetry? 
And  what  can  be  said  in  answer  to  this  criticism  ? 

NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Bryant's  works  is  that  published  by  D. 
Appleton  &  Co.  (4  vols.,  $12),  who  also  issue  the  "  Poems"  alone  (Household 
edition,  i  vol.,  $1.50;  Cabinet  edition,  i  vol.,  $i).  It  is  best  to  beware  of  un- 
authorized editions  of  the  poems,  which  are  none  of  them  complete.  "  Sella," 
with  "  Thanatopsis  "  and  other  poems,  are  included  in  one  number  of  the  Riverside 
Literature  series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  15  cents). 

There  are  biographies  by  Mr.  Parke  Godwin  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  2  vols.,  $6), 
and  by  Mr.  John  Bigelow  (in  American  Men  of  Letters  series,  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&Co.^i.25). 

For  criticism,  see  Lowell's  "  Fable  for  Critics  "  ;  Alden's  "  Studies  in  Bryant "  ; 
Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "  American  Literature  ")  ;  Mr.  E.  C.  Sted- 
man  (in  his  "  American  Poets  "). 


Fitz-Greene  Halleck 


VII     FITZ-GREENE     HALLECK     AND    JOSEPH 
RODMAN    DRAKE 

IN  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  New  York 
grew  more  rapidly  than  any  other  town  in  the  Union,  and 
it  soon  became  the  literary  center  of  the  United  States. 
There  were  men  of  letters  also  in  Philadelphia  and  in^os- 
ton  ;  and  reviews  and  magazines  were  published  in  both 
of  these  cities  ;  but  it  was  in  New  York  that  Irving  and 
Cooper  resided,  and  they  were  the  chiefs  of  our  young  liter- 
ature. Other  literators  there  were  also,  in  the  same  city, 

83 


84  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

of  less  widespread  fame.  One  of  them  was  Irving's 
friend  and  literary  partner,  James  K.  Paulding,  joint  au- 
thor of  "  Salmagundi."  Another  was  Clement  C.  Moore, 
the  writer  of  the  favorite  juvenile  poem  beginning  :  — 

'Twas  the  night  before  Christmas,  when  all  through  the  house, 
Not  a  creature  was  stirring,  not  even  a  mouse. 

Men  of  more  force  and  originality  than  either  Moore  or 
Paulding  were  the  two  friends,  Fitz-Greene  Halleck  and 
Joseph  Rodman  Drake,  who  joined  forces  in  1819  in  writ- 
ing a  series  of  occasional  poems,  signed  "  Croaker,"  or 
"  Croaker  &  Co.,"  the  authorship  of  which  was  for  a  while 
as  great  a  puzzle  to  the  inhabitants  of  New  York  as  that 
of  "  Salmagundi "  had  been  ten  years  earlier.  These 
"Croaker  Poems"  began  to  appear  in  March,  1819,  in 
the  New  York  Evening  Post,  the  long-established  news- 
paper of  which  Bryant  was  to  .become  the  editor  a  few 
years  later.  They  continued  to  be  published  in  the  col- 
umns of  this  journal  two  or  three  times  a  week  for  two  or 
three  months,  to  the  prolonged  amusement  of  all  New 
York. 

They  made  fun  of  many  of  the  men  and  women  of  the 
day.  They  bristled  with  bright  jests  on  the  topics  of 
the  time  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  they  are  little  read 
at  this  late  date.  Allusions  which  were  very  plain  to  those 
who  lived  in  the  compact  little  town  of  New  York  at 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  not  now 
easily  understood  by  the  widespread  inhabitants  of  the 
United  States  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Jokes 
which  nobody  could  fail  to  see  when  they  were  first  rimed 
are  not  now  visible  without  laborious  explanation  ;  and  as 
a  result  the  "  Croaker  Poems  "  are  no  longer  read  except 
by  students  of  history. 


86  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

But  these  verses  deserved  their  swiftly  won  reputation, 
no  doubt.  Even  to-day  it  is  not  hard  to  see  that  they  were 
the  work  of  two  clever  young  men  who  found  real  enjoy- 
ment in  the  exercise  of  their  cleverness  and  in  the  aiming 
of  their  swift  shafts  of  satire.  Some  of  the  poems  were 
written  by  Halleck  alone  and  some  by  Drake  alone,  and 
some  by  both  of  them  together,  one  suggesting  the  needed 
point  and  the  other  finding  the  metrical  expression.  There 
is  in  the  best  of  them  a  youthful  flow  of  high  spirits, 
which  is  evidence  of  the  delight  the  young  poets  took  in 
their  work.  It  is  recorded  that  on  one  occasion,  "  Drake, 
after  writing  some  stanzas  and  getting  the  proof  from  the 
printer,  laid  his  cheek  down  upon  the  lines  he  had  written, 
and  looking  at  his  fellow  poet  with  beaming  eyes,  said,  '  O, 
Halleck,  isn't  this  happiness  ? ' ' 

One  of  the  poems  originally  published  under  the  signa- 
ture of  "  Croaker  &  Co."  has  survived  because  its  theme 
was  not  temporary,  like  the  themes  of  its  fellows,  and  be- 
cause the  poet  treated  the  loftier  subject  he  chose  with  an 
appropriate  breadth  and  vigor.  This  poem  is  the  heroic 
address  to  the  "  American  Flag,"  beginning  :  — 

When  Freedom  from  her  mountain  height, 

Unfurled  her  standard  to  the  air, 
She  tore  the  azure  robe  of  night, 

And  set  the  stars  of  glory  there! 

It  was  written  by  Drake,  before  he  reached  the  age  of 
twenty-four.  The  final  four  lines  as  he  originally  drafted 
them  were  these  :  — 

And  fixed  as  yonder  orb  divine, 

That  saw  thy  bannered  blaze  unfurled, 

Shall  thy  proud  stars  resplendent  shine, 
The  guard  and  glory  of  the  world. 


f  UNIVERSITY  j 

\*S 

HALLECK    AND    DRAKE  87 

Halleck  suggested  instead  of  these  lines  this  quatrain, 
and  Drake  willingly  accepted  his  suggestion:  — 

Forever  float  that  standard  sheet  ! 

Where  breathes  the  foe  but  falls  before  us  ? 
With  Freedom's  soil  beneath  our  feet, 

And  Freedom's  banner  streaming  o'er  us  ! 

Young  as  he  was  when  he  wrote  the  stirring  stanzas  of 
this  patriotic  appeal,  Drake  was  already  the  author  of  the 


Joseph  Rodman  Drake 

"  Culprit  Fay,"  which  he  had  composed  in  1816,  in  proof 
of  his  assertion  that  the  rivers  of  America  were  as  well 
fitted  for  poetic  treatment  as  the  rivers  of  Scotland.  In 
1816  Irving  had  not  yet  published  the  first  number  of  the 
"  Sketch  Book,"  which  was  to  contain  "  Rip  Van  Winkle," 


of 


!'£0' 


88 


HALLECK   AND   DRAKE  89 

the  first  attempt  to  give  literary  form  to  the  legends  of  the 
Hudson;  nor  had  Cooper  then  written  the  "Spy,"  the 
first  American  historical  novel.  Indeed,  Cooper  was  one 
of  those  who  then  took  part  in  the  discussion,  agreeing 
with  Halleck  that  the  streams  of  the  New  World  lacked 
the  romantic  associations  of  the  streams  of  the  Old  World. 
Drake  stood  up  manfully  for  the  poetic  possibilities  of 
America ;  and  to  support  his  challenge  he  composed  in 
three  days  his  exquisite  poem. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  "  Culprit  Fay "  was  written  as 
the  "Pilot"  was  a  few  years  later,  not  for  its  own  sake 
only,  but  to  be  offered  as  evidence  in  behalf  of  an  argu- 
ment. Yet  it  does  not  by  any  labored  structure  reveal 
that  its  origin  was  deliberate  and  not  spontaneous.  No 
poem  done  of  set  purpose  ever  flowed  more  freely  and 
more  easily ;  and  as  we  read  its  tuneful  measures  we  never 
think  of  denying  the  right  of  the  fairy  folk  to  dwell  on  the 
beautiful  banks  of  the  Hudson.  Nor  did  Drake  in  any 
way  shirk  the  difficulties  by  trying  to  transplant  to  America 
all  the  traditional  devices  of  European  romance.  He  frankly 
introduced  the  insects  of  America,  for  example,  and  made 
them  serve  his  picturesque  purpose  :  — 

The  winds  are  whist  and  the  owl  is  still, 

The  bat  in  the  shelvy  rock  is  hid. 
And  naught  is  heard  on  the  lonely  hill 
But  the  cricket's  chirp,  and  the  answer  shrill 

Of  the  gauze-winged  katydid. 

It  was  well  for  Drake  that  he  did  his  work  in  youth,  for 
when  his  life  ended  he  was  only  twenty-five.  Born  in 
August,  1795,  he  died  in  September,  1820.  He  was,  so 
Halleck  declared,  the  handsomest  man  in  New  York.  He 
was  happily  married.  He  had  studied  medicine  and  his 
practice  as  a  physician  was  growing.  He  had  high  hopes 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


for  the  future  and  thought  but  little  of  what  he  had  already 
accomplished.  Halleck  kept  watch  by  the  bedside  of  his 
dying  friend  ;  and  when  Drake  was  dead,  Halleck  gave 
voice  to  his  grief  in  the  beautiful  elegy,  the  opening  lines 
of  which  are  familiar  to  every  lover  of  poetry  :  — 

Green  be  the  turf  above  thee, 

Friend  of  my  better  days  ! 
None  knew  thee  but  to  love  thee, 

Nor  named  thee  but  to  praise. 

Halleck  was  five   years    older    than    Drake,    whom    he 
survived  for  nearly  half  a  century.       Although  he   spent 

most  of  the  years  of 
his  manhood  in  New 
York,  Halleck  was 
born  in  the  village  of 
Guilford,  Connecticut, 
in  1790;  and  when  he 
felt  himself  to  be  grow- 
ing old  he  retired  to 
his  native  place,  and  it 
was  at  Guilford  that 
he  died,  in  1867.  His 
mother  was  descended 
from  John  Eliot,  the 
apostle  to  the  Indians. 
His  father  had  been  a 
Tory  during  the  Rev- 
olution, and  may  even 

Drake's  Residence,  Bowery,  New  York  City         have    Served    with     the 

British  troops. 

Perhaps  it  was    from  his  father  that    Halleck   derived 
his  deference  for  British  authority,  and  his  liking  for  the 


HALLECK   AND   DRAKE  91 

British  system  of  society.  Certainly  he  was  not  free  from 
the  taint  of  colonialism ;  he  was  wanting  in  the  sturdy 
Americanism  which  was  one  of  Drake's  characteristics. 
Halleck  looked  across  the  ocean  for  light  and  leading;  and 
the  themes  he  treated  were  often  European.  It  is  signifi- 
cant that  Drake's  best  known  poem  is  that  on  the  "Amer- 
ican Flag,"  while  the  most  popular  poem  of  Halleck  is 
"  Marco  Bozzaris." 


Halleck's  Residence,  Guilford,  Conn. 

It  was  in  1826  that  this  resonant  martial  lyric  was  first 
published  in  the  New  York  Review,  then  edited  by  Bryant. 
It  has  not  a  little  of  the  swing  and  the  fire  and  the  power 
we  find  in  the  Grecian  poems  of  Byron  —  and  perhaps  it 
owed  something  of  its  form  and  of  its  spirit  to  Byron's 
poetry.  Halleck  had  also  the  knack  of  society  verse ;  he 
could  rime  a  gentle  satire ;  he  could  make  his  stanzas 
brilliant  and  buoyant.  The  skill  with  which  he  handled 
meter  has  been  highly  praised  by  Bryant,  who  said  that 
"in  no  poet  could  be  found  passages  which  flow  with  more 


92  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

sweet  and  liquid  smoothness."  He  was  witty  rather  than 
wise  ;  he  had  abundant  ease  and  a  grace  that  seemed  care- 
less. He  was  apt  in  the  adroit  mingling  of  banter  and 
sentiment,  as  in  the  lines  on  "  Red  Jacket,"  the  Indian 
chief,  and  in  the  verses  about  "Wyoming."  Sometimes 
the  feeling  expressed  in  his  poems  is  sincere  and  strong, 
as  in  the  lines  on  "  Burns,"  although  the  expression  itself 
is  firmly  kept  from  any  suggestion  of  exuberance.  Seldom 
were  his  stanzas  as  vigorous  and  direct  as  those  on  "  Marco 
Bozzaris  " ;  and  rarely  did  he  rise  to  the  profound  emotion 
of  the  poem  he  wrote  after  the  death  of  Drake. 

QUESTIONS.  —  What  claims  had  New  York  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  to  be  considered  the  literary  center  of  the  United 
States  ? 

Tell  how  a  discussion  of  that  time  led  to  the  production  of  a  cele- 
brated poem. 

Account  for  the  oblivion  into  which  the  "  Croaker  "  papers  have  now 
fallen. 

What  characteristics  of  Drake  and  Halleck  are  illustrated  by  the  two 
most  popular  examples  of  their  separate  work  ? 

NOTE.  —  The  poetical  writings  of  Halleck,  with  extracts  from  those  of  Drake, 
have  been  edited  by  Gen.  J.  G.  Wilson  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  $  1.50). 

Mr.  Wilson  is  also  the  author  of  the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Fitz-Greene  Halleck  >: 
(D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  $2.50),  in  which  the  brief  career  of  Drake  is  also  outlined. 


VIII     RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON 

ALTHOUGH  Franklin  and  Bryant  were  born  in  New 
England,  they  left  it  in  early  life  —  Franklin  for  Philadel- 
phia, and  Bryant  for  New  York,  where  he  found  Irving 
and  Cooper.  The  earliest  of  the  leaders  of  American 
literature  to  be  born  in  New  England,  to  live  there,  and  to 
die  there,  was  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

He  is  the  foremost  representative  of  the  powerful  influ- 
ence which  New  England  has  exerted  on  American  life 
and  on  American  literature.  The  fathers  of  Franklin  and 
of  Irving  were  newcomers  ;  the  ancestors  of  Emerson  had 

93 


94  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

been  settled  in  New  England  for  five  generations.  They 
had  been  ministers  of  the  gospel,  one  after  another ;  and 
Emerson's  grandfather  belonged  also  to  the  church  mili- 
tant, urging  on  his  parishioners  to  the  fight  at  Concord 
Bridge  in  1775,  and  dying  in  1776  from  a  fever  caught 
while  on  his  way  to  join  the  troops  at  Ticonderoga. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was  born  May  25,  1803,  in 
Boston,  not  far  from  the  birthplace  of  Franklin.  His 
father  was  a  clergyman,  who  had  recently  founded  what 
is  now  the  library  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum.  Books, 
rather  than  the  usual  boyish  sports,  were  the  delight 
of  the  son.  He  rarely  played,  and  never  owned  a  sled. 
In  the  austere  New  England  life  of  the  time  there  was 
little  leisure  for  mere  amusement. 

Emerson's  father  died  before  the  boy  was  eight  years 
old,  and  thereafter  the  child  had  to  help  his  mother,  who 
took  boarders  and  tried  hard  to  give  her  sons  an  education 
s.uch  as  their  father's.  Emerson  entered  the  Latin  School 
in  1813,  and  one  day  the  next  year,  when  there  was  a 
rumor  that  the  British  were  going  to  send  a  fleet  to  Boston 
Harbor,  he  went  with  the  rest  of  the  boys  to  help  build 
earthworks  on  one  of  the  islands.  About  this  time,  also, 
he  began  to  rime,  celebrating  in  juvenile  verse  the  victories 
of  the  young  American  navy. 

In  August,  1817,  Emerson  entered  Harvard  College, 
obtaining  the  appointment  of  "  President's  Freshman,"  a 
student  who  received  his  lodgings  free  in  return  for  carry- 
ing official  messages.  He  served  also  as  waiter  at  the 
college  commons,  and  so  saved  three  fourths  the  cost  of 
his  board.  Later  in  his  college  course  he  acted  as  tutor 
to  younger  pupils.  He  seems  to  have  impressed  his 
instructors  as  a  youth  of  remarkable  ability ;  but  he  was 
not  a  diligent  student. 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  95 

In  those  days  Harvard  was  not  a  university  ;  it  was  not 
even  a  college  ;  it  was  little  more  than  a  high  school  where 
boys  recited  their  lessons.  Emerson  was  only  eighteen 
when  he  was  graduated,  feeling  that  the  regular  course 
of  studies  had  done  little  for  him,  and  having  therefore 
strayed  out  of  the  beaten  path  to  browse  for  himself 
among  the  books  in  the  library.  He  was  popular  with 
the  best  of  his  classmates,  and  at  graduation  he  was  class 
poet. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  value  of  a  college  educa- 
tion in  those  days,  Emerson  was  the  earliest  of  the  little 
group  of  the  founders  of  American  literature  to  go  through 
college.  Franklin,  having  to  work  for  his  living  from  early 
boyhood,  had  no  time  ;  Irving,  after  preparing  for  Colum- 
bia, threw  his  chance  away  ;  Cooper  was  expelled  from 
Yale  ;  and  Bryant  was  so  dissatisfied  with  Williams  that 
he  left  it  after  a  single  year.  But  the  authors  who  came 
after  Emerson  made  sure  of  the  best  education  that  this 
country  could  afford  them.  Hawthorne  and  Longfellow 
were  graduated  from  Bowdoin,  while  from  Emerson's  col- 
lege, Harvard,  were  to  come  Holmes  and  Lowell,  Thoreau 
and  Parkman. 

When  he  graduated,  Emerson's  ambition  was  to  be  a 
professor  of  rhetoric  ;  but  such  a  position  was  never 
offered  to  him.  He  taught  school  for  a  while  in  Boston, 
earning  money  to  pay  his  debts  and  to  help  his  mother. 
Then  he  entered  the  Divinity  School  at  Harvard,  and,  in 
October,  1826,  he  was  "approbated  to  preach,"  delivering 
his  first  sermon  a  few  days  later.  For  the  sake  of  his 
health  he  spent  that  winter  in  Florida,  at  St.  Augustine. 
On  his  return  he  lived  chiefly  in  Cambridge,  preaching 
here  and  there;  and  in  the  spring  of  1829  he  became  the 
minister  of  the  old  North  Church  in  Boston.  In  Setem- 


UNIVERSIT 


96  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

her  he  married  Miss  Ellen  Tucker,  but  he  lost  his  wife 
soon  after  the  marriage.  Not  long  after,  a  change  in  his 
views  as  to  religious  rites  and  duties  made  him  unwilling 
to  remain  in  the  ministry,  and  in  1832  he  resigned  his 
charge. 

On  Christmas  day  of  that  year  he  sailed  for  Europe  in 
a  small  brig  bound  for  Malta,  whence  he  went  over  into 
Italy,  and  thence  to  France  and  Great  Britain,  and  met  the 
essayist  Carlyle  and  the  poets  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge. 
With  Carlyle  Emerson  formed  a  lasting  friendship,  which 
seems  extraordinary,  for  few  men  were  less  akin  in  their 
manners  or  in  their  views  of  life.  In  low,  clear  tones  the 
gentle  American  spoke  to  the  soul  of  man,  while  the  burly 
Scotch  humorist  was  forever  scolding  and  shrieking.  Car- 
lyle was  proudly  scornful  and  harshly  indignant,  while 
Emerson  was  kindly,  tolerant,  and  forbearing ;  but  differ- 
ent as  were  their  attitudes,  their  aims  were  not  .so  unlike, 
since  Emerson  loved  good  and  Carlyle  hated  evil ;  and 
their  friendship  endured  till  death. 

Toward  the  end  of  1833  Emerson  came  back  to  Amer- 
ica, pleased  that  in  Europe  he  had  met  the  men  he  most 
wished  to  see.  A  few  months  after  his  return  he  settled 
in  Concord,  to  reside  there  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  In 
1835  ne  married  Miss  Lidian  Jackson,  with  whom  he  was 
to  live  happily  for  nearly  half  a  century. 

Emerson  was  now  past  thirty.  He  was  not  yet  known 
as  an  author,  and  he  did  not  look  to  authorship  for  his 
living ;  indeed,  in  the  United  States  authorship  could  then 
give  but  a  precarious  livelihood.  Besides,  he  preferred  to 
teach  by  word  of  mouth.  He  still  preached  occasionally, 
and  he  lectured  frequently.  His  earliest  addresses  seem 
to  have  been  on  scientific  subjects,  and  he  talked  to  his 
townsmen  also  about  his  travels  in  Europe,  which  was 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON 


97 


then  distant  at  least  a  month's  sail,  and  which  few  Ameri- 
cans could  hope  to  visit.  For  many  years  he  delivered  in 
Boston,  nearly  every  winter,  long  courses  of  lectures,  not 
reported  or  printed,  but  containing  much  that  the  author 
repeated  in  the  essays  he  was  to  publish  afterward. 

At  last,  in  1836,  he  put  forth  his  first  book,  "Nature,  " 
and  the  next  year  he  delivered  an  oration  on  "  The  Ameri- 


Emerson's  Residence,  Concord,  Mass. 

can  Scholar."  Hitherto  little  had  happened  to  him  except 
the  commonplaces  of  existence  ;  thereafter,  though  his  life 
remained  tranquil,  he  was  known  to  the  world  at  large.  He 
was  greeted  as  are  all  who  declare  a  new  doctrine ;  wel- 
comed by  some,  abused  by  many,  misunderstood  by  most. 
Proclaiming  the  value  of  self-reliance,  Emerson  denounced 
man's  slavery  to  his  own  worldly  prosperity,  and  set  forth 

AMER.  LIT.  —  7 


98  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

at  once  the  duty  and  the  pleasure  of  the  plain  living  which 
permits  high  thinking.  "  Why  should  you  renounce  your 
right  to  traverse  the  starlit  deserts  of  truth, "  he  asked, 
"for  the  premature  comforts  of  an  acre,  house,  and  barn? " 

He  asserted  the  virtue  of  manual  labor.  Looking  bravely 
toward  the  future,  he  bade  his  hearers  break  the  bonds  of 
the  past.  He  told  them  to  study  themselves,  since  all  the 
real  good  or  evil  that  can  befall  must  come  from  them- 
selves. At  the  heart  of  Emerson's  doctrine  there  was 
always  a  sturdy  and  wholesome  Americanism. 

He  was  never  self-assertive.  He  never  put  himself 
forward  ;  and  yet  from  that  time  on  there  was  no  denying 
his  leadership  of  the  intellectual  advance  of  the  United 
States.  The  most  enlightened  spirits  of  New  England 
gathered  about  him  ;  and  he  found  himself  in  the  center  of 
the  vague  movement  known  as  "Transcendentalism."  For 
all  their  hardness,  the  New  Englanders  are  an  imaginative 
race ;  and  Transcendentalism  is  but  one  of  the  waves  of 
spiritual  sentiment  which  have  swept  over  them.  Emer- 
son himself  had  never  a  hint  of  eccentricity.  His  judg- 
ment was  always  sane  and  calm.  He  edited  for  a  while 
the  Dial,  a  magazine  for  which  the  Transcendentalists 
wrote,  and  which  existed  from  1840  to  1844.  But  he  took 
no  part  in  an  experiment  of  communal  life  undertaken  by 
a  group  of  Transcendentalists  at  Brook  Farm  from  1841 
to  1847.  Among  those  who  did  join  this  community 
where  all  were  to  share  in  the  labor  of  the  field  and  of  the 
household  were  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  George  William 
Curtis. 

In  1841  Emerson  published  the  first  volume  of  his 
"  Essays  "  ;  and  he  sent  forth  a  second  series  in  1844.  In 
his  hands  the  essay  returns  almost  to  the  form  of  Mon- 
taigne and  Bacon ;  it  is  weighty  and  witty ;  but  it  is  not 


RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  99 

so  light  as  it  was  with  Addison  and  Steele,  with  Gold- 
smith and  Irving.  He  indulged  in  fancies  sometimes,  and 
he  strove  to  take  his  readers  by  surprise,  to  startle  them, 
and  so  to  arouse  them  to  the  true  view  of  life.  Nearly  all 
his  essays  had  been  lectures,  and  every  paragraph  had 
been  tested  by  its  effect  upon  an  audience.  Thus  the 
weak  phrases  were  discarded  one  by  one,  until  at  last 
every  sentence,  polished  by  wear,  rounded  to  a  perfect 
sphere,  went  to  the  mark  with  unerring  certainty. 

To  Emerson  an  essay  was  rather  a  collection  of  single 
sayings  than  a  harmonious  whole.  He  was  keen-eyed  and 
clear-sighted  enough  to  understand  his  own  shortcomings, 
and  he  once  said  that  every  sentence  of  his  was  an  "  infi- 
nitely repellent  particle."  His  thoughts  did  not  form  a 
glittering  chain ;  they  were  not  even  loosely  linked  to- 
gether. They  lay  side  by  side  like  unset  gems  in  a  box. 
Emerson  was  rather  a  poet  with  moments  of  insight  than 
a  systematic  philosopher.  The  lack  of  structure  in  his 
essays  was,  in  a  measure,  due  also  to  the  way  they  were 
written. 

It  was  Emerson's  practice  to  set  down  in  his  journal  his 
detached  thoughts  as  soon  as  they  had  taken  shape. 
Whenever  he  had  a  lecture  to  prepare,  he  selected  from  his 
journal  those  sentences  which  seemed  to  bear  on  the  sub- 
ject of  his  discourse,  adding  whatever  other  illustrations 
or  anecdotes  suggested  themselves  to  him  at  the  moment. 
"In  writing  my  thoughts,"  he  declared,  "I  seek  no  order, 
or  harmony,  or  results.  I  am  not  careful  to  see  how  they 
comport  with  other  thoughts  and  other  words — I  trust  them 
for  that  —  any  more  than  how  any  one  minute  of  the  year 
is  related  to  any  other  remote  minute  which  yet  I  know  is 
so  related.  The  thoughts  and  the  minutes  obey  their  own 
magnetisms,  and  will  certainly  reveal  themselves  in  time." 


JOO 


101 


102  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Emerson's  first  volume  of  "  Poems  "  was  published  in 
1846.  Ten  years  before  he  had  written  the  hymn  sung  at 
the  completion  of  the  monument  commemorating  Con- 
cord fight : — 

By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 
Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 

Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 

This  is  one  of  the  best,  and  one  of  the  best  known,  of 
the  poems  of  American  patriotism.  But  Emerson  cared 
too  little  for  form  often  to  write  so  perfect  a  poem.  The 
bonds  of  rime  and  meter  irked  him  and  he  broke  them 
willfully.  Now  and  again  he  happened  on  a  quatrain  than 
which  nothing  can  be  more  beautiful :  — 

Thou  canst  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 

Or  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake, 
But  it  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 

And  the  ripples  in  rimes  the  oar  forsake. 

Following  Bryant  and  Drake,  Emerson  put  into  his  verse 
nature  as  he  saw  it  about  him  —  the  life  of  American  woods 
and  fields.  No  second-hand  nightingale  sang  in  his  verses  ; 
he  took  pleasure  in  riming  the  "Humble-bee"  and  the 
"Titmouse,"  and  in  singing  the  streams  and  the  hills  of  New 
England.  Herein  there  was  no  lack  of  elevation.  The 
spirit  of  the  true  poet  Emerson  had  abundantly ;  indeed, 
there  are  those  now  who  call  him  a  poet  rather  than  a 
philosopher.  However  careless  his  verse  making — and  it 
was  sometimes  very  slovenly  —  the  best  of  his  stanzas  are 
strong  and  bracing ;  they  lift  up  the  heart  of  man. 

One  of  Emerson's  poems  most  richly  laden  with  emotion 
and  experience  is  the  "Threnody,"  which  he  wrote  after 
the  death  of  his  first-born.  He  was  a  fond  father;  and  his 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  103 

home  life  was  beautiful,  like  that  of  nearly  all  the  foremost 
American  authors.  He  liked  children,  and  they  liked  him. 
He  understood  them,  entering  into  their  feelings  as  easily 
as  he  entered  into  their  sports.  In  his  own  family,  disci- 
pline —  never  neglected  —  was  enforced  by  the  gentlest 
methods;  and  he  had  unbounded  interest  in  the  details  of 
the  school  life  of  his  own  children,  getting  them  to  talk  to 
him  as  freely  as  they  did  to  their  comrades.  This  was  but 
an  example  of  his  willingness  always  to  put  himself  in  the 
place  of  others  and  to  try  to  see  things  from  their  point  of 
view.  An  instance  of  this  sympathetic  faculty,  and  of  his 
abiding  simplicity,  was  his  comment  on  the  minister  who 
went  up  to  the  pulpit  after  Emerson  had  lectured,  and  who 
prayed  that  they  might  be  delivered  from  ever  again  hear- 
ing such  "transcendental  nonsense."  Emerson  listened 
to  this,  and  remarked  quietly,  "  He  seems  a  very  conscien- 
tious, plain-spoken  man." 

In  1847  Emerson  made  a  second  voyage  to  Europe,  sail- 
ing in  October  and  coming  home  in  July  of  the  following 
year.  The  most  of  the  time  he  spent  in  England,  lectur- 
ing often,  meeting  the  most  distinguished  men  and  women 
of  Great  Britain,  studying  matters  and  men  in  the  little 
island.  In  the  summer  he  crossed  the  Channel  to  France, 
and  saw  Paris  in  the  heat  of  the  revolution  of  1848.  After 
his  return  to  America  he  resumed  his  lecturing,  pushing  as 
far  west  as  the  Mississippi. 

Certain  of  the  lectures  prepared  for  delivery  in  England 
supplied  the  material  for  his  next  book  —  "Representa- 
tive Men"  —published  in  1850.  Only  two  of  Emerson's 
books  have  any  singleness  of  scheme,  and  this  is  one  of 
them.  He  discusses  first  the  uses  of  great  men,  and 
then  he  considers  in  turn  Plato,  Swedenborg,  Montaigne, 
Shakspere,  Napoleon,  and  Goethe  —  great  men,  all  of 


104  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

them,  interesting  in  themselves  and  doubly  interesting  as 
Emerson  reflects  their  images  in  his  clear  mirror.  It  is 
instructive  to  contrast  Emerson's  hopeful  and  helpful  treat- 
ment of  these  "Representative  Men  "  with  Carlyle's  doleful 
and  robustious  writing  upon  the  kindred  topic  of  "  Heroes 
and  Hero  Worship." 

The  observations  Emerson  had  made  of  English  life 
during  his  two  visits  had  been  used  in  various  lectures, 
and  from  these  he  made  a  book,  published  in  1856,  under 
the  title  of  "  English  Traits."  For  close  argument  he 
had  no  fitness  and  no  liking,  but  this  volume  has  more 
logical  sequence  than  any  other  of  his.  It  may  be  said 
almost  to  have  a  plan.  It  opens  with  a  narrative  of  his 
first  voyage  to  England,  and  it  contains  a  study  of  the 
character  of  the  British.  It  is  perhaps  the  best  book 
ever  written  about  a  great  people  by  a  foreigner. 

Emerson  had  a  singularly  keen  sense  of  the  ridiculous, 
he  had  an  uncommon  share  of  common  sense,  and  he  had 
a  marvelous  insight  into  humanity ;  and  it  is  therefore  the 
highest  possible  testimony  to  the  substantial  merits  of  the 
British  that  they  stood  so  well  the  ordeal  of  his  exami- 
nation. He  was  too  sturdy  an  American  to  be  taken 
in  by  the  glamour  of  the  aristocratic  arrangement  of  their 
society  ;  he  saw  clearly  the  weakness  of  the  British  sys- 
tem, but  he  is  never  hostile,  and  never  patronizing;  he  is 
always  ready  to  praise  boldly. 

The  spirit  of  the  book  can  be  shown  by  the  extract  from 
a  letter  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  America  just  before  his 
return  :  "  I  leave  England  with  increased  respect  for  the 
Englishman,  .  .  .  the  more  generous  that  I  have  no  sym- 
pathy for  him."  Emerson  expressed  his  admiration  heart- 
ily, but  he  rejoiced  always  that  he  lived  in  a  society  free 
from  the  traditions  of  feudalism. 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  105 

In  his  own  country  he  was  a  good  citizen,  taking  part 
in  town  meeting,  and  doing  his  share  of  town  work  —  even 
accepting  his  election  as  a  hogreeve  of  Concord.  Declar- 
ing always  the  duty  and  the  dignity  of  labor,  he  detested; 
the  system  of  slavery  under  which  white  men  were  sup- 
ported by  the  toil  of  black  men.  He  did  not  join  the^ 
abolitionists,  but  his  voice  was  strong  on  the  side  of  free-] 
dom.  He  spoke  out  plainly  during  the  strife  in  Kansas, 
and  again  after  the  hanging  of  John  Brown.  Yet  he  was 
like  Goethe  in  finding  patriotism  too  narrow  for  him  :  he 
looked  forward  and  he  foresaw  the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 
But  no  intensely  national  poet,  no  Hugo,  no  Tennyson, 
was  more  stimulating  to  his  country.  He  it  was  who  had 
edged  the  resolve  of  the  American  people  when  the  hour 
came  for  stern  battle.  Lowell  said  that  to  Emerson  more 
than  to  all  other  causes  "the  young  martyrs  of  our  Civil 
War  owe  the  sustaining  strength  of  thoughtful  heroism 
that  is  so  touching  in  every  record  of  their  lives." 

When  the  war  came  at  last,  Emerson  was  unfailingly 
hopeful.  He  delivered  an  address  on  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  declaring  the  young  happy  in  that  they  then 
found  the  pestilence  of  slavery  cleansed  out  of  the  earth. 
On  New  Year's  Day,  1863,  he  read  his  noble  "Boston 
Hymn,"  with  its  rough  and  resonant  verses ;  and  in  the 
same  year  he  wrote  the  "Voluntaries,"  wherein  we  find 
this  lofty  and  inspiring  quatrain  :  — 

So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 

The  youth  replies,  I  can. 

And  at  the  meeting  held  at  Concord  in  memory  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  he  made  a  short  address  in  which  he 


106  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

set  forth  the  character  of  the  fallen  leader  with  the  utmost 
sympathy  and  the  clearest  insight. 

A  collection  of  Emerson's  later  essays  had  been  pub- 
lished in  1860  under  the  title  of  the  first  of  them,  the 
"Conduct  of  Life";  and  in  1870  another  collection  followed, 
also  named  after  the  opening  paper,  "  Society  and  Soli- 
tude." There  can  be  found  in  these  volumes  the  same 
wit  and  paradox,  the  same  felicity  of  phrase,  the  same 
beauty  of  thought,  the  same  elevation  of  spirit,  that  we  find 
in  his  earlier  volumes. 

Emerson  grew  but  little  as  he  became  older ;  he  was 
at  the  end  very  much  what  he  was  at  the  beginning.  He 
admitted  his  own  "incapacity  for  methodical  writing." 
However  inspiring,  every  sentence  stands  by  itself;  the 
paragraphs  might  be  rearranged  almost  at  random  with- 
out loss  to  the  essential  value  of  the  essays.  Emerson 
made  no  effort  to  formulate  his  doctrine ;  he  had  no 
compact  system  of  philosophy.  Perhaps  he  was  not  a 
philosopher  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word ;  but  rather  a 
maker  of  golden  sayings,  full  of  vital  suggestion,  to  help  men 
to  be  themselves  and  to  make  the  utmost  of  themselves. 

For  years  Emerson  had  extended  his  winter  lecturing 
tours  as  far  west  as  the  Mississippi;  and  in  1871  he  ac- 
cepted the  invitation  of  a  friend  to  visit  California,  bearing 
the  fatigue  of  the  long  journey  with  unwearied  cheerful- 
ness. Toward  the  end  of  1872  he  sailed  for  Europe,  on 
a  third  visit  to  the  Old  World.  In  England  and  France 
and  Italy  he  met  again  his  friends  of  former  years,  and 
he  wandered  on  as  far  as  Egypt,  where  he  had  never 
been  before.  He  was  back  again  in  Concord  the  next 
spring,  and  his  return  home  was  marked  by  an  outpour- 
ing of  all  his  townsmen  to  welcome  him  among  them 
once  more. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  107 

For  several  years  Emerson  had  written  but  little,  although 
he  continued  now  and  then  to  draw  out  new  essays  and 
make  addresses  from  the  store  of  lectures  he  had  by 
him.  Thus  in  1870  he  had  given  a  course  of  university 
lectures  at  Harvard  on  the  "  Natural  History  of  the 
Intellect,"  and  in  1878  he  read  a  lecture  on  the  "  Fortune 
of  the  Republic,"  written  and  already  delivered  in  war 
time  fifteen  years  before.  And  in  1875  yet  another  col- 
lection of  his  essays  was  published  under  the  title  of  the 
first  paper,  "  Letters  and  Social  Aims."  This  volume 
had  been  prepared  for  the  press  by  an  old  friend,  for 
Emerson's  powers  were  beginning  to  fail.  He  retained 
possession  of  his  faculties  to  the  last ;  but  though  his  mind 
was  clear,  he  had  increasing  difficulty  in  recalling  the 
words  to  express  his  ideas.  He  forgot  not  only  proper 
names,  but  even  the  names  of  common  things,  while  keep- 
ing the  power  of  describing  them  in  the  words  he  had  left. 
So,  when  he  wanted  to  say  "  umbrella "  once,  and  was 
unable  to  recall  the  name,  he  said,  "  I  can't  tell  its  name, 
but  I  can  tell  its  history.  Strangers  take  it  away."  Emer- 
son looked  calmly  forward  to  death,  and  it  came  when  he 
was  nearly  seventy-nine  years  of  age,  on  April  27,  1882. 

Benjamin  Franklin,  born  in  Boston  almost  a  century 
before  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was  born  there,  lived  long 
enough  to  see  the  straggling  colonies  with  their  scant  four 
hundred  thousand  settlers  grow  into  a  vigorous  young 
nation  of  four  million  inhabitants.  Emerson,  born  only 
thirteen  years  after  Franklin's  death,  lived  long  enough  to 
see  the  United  States  increase  to  thirty-eight,  and  a  popu- 
lation of  five  and  a  half  millions*  expand  to  a  population  of 
fifty  millions.  He  survived  to  behold  a  little  nation  grow 
to  be  a  mighty  people,  able  to  fight  a  righteous  war  with- 
out flinching. 


IO8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Different  as  they  are,  Franklin  and  Emerson  are  both 
typical  Americans  —  taken  together  they  give  us  the  two 

j  sides  of  the  American  character.  Franklin  stands  for  the 
real,  and  Emerson  for  the  ideal.  Franklin  represents  the 

»   prose  of  American  life,  and  Emerson  the  poetry.     Frank- 

,  i  lin's  power  is  limited  by  the  bounds  of  common  sense, 
while  Emerson's  appeal  is  to  the  wider  imagination. 
Where  Emerson  advises  you  to  "hitch  your  wagon  to  a 
star,"  Franklin  is  ready  with  an  improved  axle-grease  for 
the  wheels.  Franklin  declares  that  honesty  is  the  best 
policy ;  and  Emerson  insists  on  honesty  as  the  only  means 

:  whereby  a  man  may  be  free  to  undertake  higher  things. 
Self-reliance  was  at  the  core  of  the  doctrine  of  each  of 
them,  but  one  urged  self-help  in  the  material  world  and 
the  other  in  the  spiritual.  Hopeful  they  were,  both  of 
them,  and  kindly,  and  shrewd ;  and  in  the  making  of  the 
American  people,  in  the  training  and  in  the  guiding  of  this 
immense  population,  no  two  men  have  done  more  than 
these  two  sons  of  New  England. 


QUESTIONS.  —  Compare  the  antecedents  of  Emerson  with  those  of 
several  earlier  American  authors. 

Speak  of  Emerson's  boyhood  and  student  days,  and  of  his  choice  of 
a  profession. 

How  did  the  year  1833  influence  Emerson's  later  life? 

How  did  Emerson  become  the  leader  of  advanced  thought  in 
America? 

What  may  be  said  of  Emerson  as  an  essayist?     And  as  a  poet? 

Show  how  Emerson,  in  two  books  that  grew  out  of  his  second  visit 
to  Europe,  displayed  the  breadth  of  his  sympathies. 

Discuss  the  quality  of  Emerspn's  patriotism. 

What  evidence  do  you  find  in  Emerson's  later  books  to  show  the 
early  maturing  of  his  mind  ? 

Describe  the  last  years  of  Emerson's  life. 

Compare  Emerson  and  Franklin  as  typical  Americans. 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  109 

NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Emerson's  works  is  that  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  (12  vols.,  $1.25  or  $1.75  each).  The  poems  are  contained 
in  one  volume  of  the  Household  Edition  ($1.50).  It  is  best  to  beware  of  unauthor- 
ized editions  of  the  poems,  none  of  which  are  complete.  There  are  now  cheap 
editions  of  certain  of  the  earlier  volumes  of  essays.  The  "  American  Scholar," 
"  Self-Reliance,"  and  "  Compensation"  are  included  in  a  single  volume  (American 
Book  Company,  20  cents).  The  "American  Scholar  and  other  American  Ad- 
dresses" forms  one  number  of  the  Riverside  Literature  "series  (Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  15  cents). 

There  are  biographies  by  J.  Elliot  Cabot,  Dr.  Richard  Garnett,  Alexander  Ire- 
land,  E.  W.  Emerson,  and  in  American  Men  of  Letters  series  by  Dr.  Holmes 
(Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  $1.25). 

For  criticism,  see  Lowell's  "Fable  for  Critics"  and  "  Emerson  the  Lecturer" 
(in  "My  Study  Windows")  ;  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  (in  "American  Poets");  and 
G.  W.  Curtis  (in  "  Literary  and  Social  Essays  ")  ;  Mr.  John  Burroughs  (in  "  In- 
door Studies")  ;  and  Prof.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "American  Literature"). 
For  an  account  of  the  Transcendental  movement  and  of  the  Brook  Farm  experi- 
ment, see  Frothingham's  "Life  of  George  Ripley  "  in  American  Men  of  Letters 
series,  and  his  history  of  "  Transcendentalism  in  New  England." 


IX     NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE 

THE  little  town  of  Salem  in  Massachusetts  is  memorable 
chiefly  because  of  the  pitiful  witchcraft  trials  held  there 
two  hundred  years  ago.  One  of  the  judges  most  active  in 
the  task  of  convicting  the  poor  creatures  then  accused  of 
evil  practices  was  John  Hathorne.  In  Salem  there  lived, 
first  and  last,  six  generations  of  this  family  (spelling  its 
name  sometimes  Hathorne  and  sometimes  Hawthorne) ; 
and  in  Salem  Judge  Hathorne's  grandson's  grandson  was 
born  in  1804  on  the  Fourth  of  July  —  a  fitting  birthday  for 
an  author  so  intensely  American  as  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

no 


OF  THB 

UNIVERSITY 
NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE  III 

Four  years  after  the  boy's  birth,  his  father,  a  sea  captain, 
died  at  Surinam ;  and  his  mother  never  recovered  from 
the  blow  of  her  husband's  death,  withdrawing  herself 
wholly  from  society,  and  living  for  forty  years  the  life  of  a 
recluse,  even  to  the  extent  of  taking  her  meals  apart  from 
her  children.  • 

When  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  was  eight  or  nine  years  old 
his  mother  took  up  her  residence  on  the  banks  of  Sebago 
Lake  in  Maine,  where  the  family  owned  a  large  tract  of 
land.      Here   the    boy    ran    wild,    fishing  and    swimming, 
shooting  and  skating  —  and,  on  the  rainy  days,  reading. 
This  life  in  the  woods 
increased  the  liking  for 
solitude    which    he    in- 
herited from  his  mother, 
and  which  in  after  years 
he  was  never  able  wholly 
to  overcome.      In  time 
he  went  back  to  Salem 
to   prepare   for  college. 
In     1821,     being     then 
seventeen,    he    entered 
Bowdoin,  having  Long- 
fellow  for   a   classmate,    and    making    a    close    friend    of 
Franklin  Pierce,  who  was  in  the  class  before  him  and  who 
was  afterward  President  of  the  United  States. 

He  was  graduated  in  1825,  and  he  then  went  back  to 
Salem.  The  family  was  fairly  well-to-do,  and  it  was  not 
needful  for  Nathaniel  to  hurry  in  choosing  a  profession. 
He  had  already  decided  that  he  wished  to  be  an  author, 
but  authorship  offered  little  chance  of  a  livelihood.  There 
was  not  then  a  single  prosperous  magazine  in  the  United 
States.  Yet  the  "  Sketch  Book  "  and  the  "  Spy,"  the  pio- 


Hawthorne's  Birthplac 


112  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

neers  of  American  literature,  had  been  published  not  five 
years  before ;  and  the  success  of  Irving  and  of  Cooper, 
and  the  prompt  appreciation  with  which  their  early 
writings  were  received  both  in  America  and  in  England, 
was  encouraging  to  other  native  authors.  So  the  year 
afte*r  he  left  college  Hawthorne  wrote  a  tale  and  published 
it  at  his  own  expense ;  but  it  made  no  impression  on  the 
public,  and  very  few  copies  were  sold. 

The  tale  appeared  without  the  author's  name,  and  its 
failure  seems  to  have  increased  Hawthorne's  love  of  soli- 
tude. For  ten  years  and  more  he  lived  in  his  mother's 
house  almost  as  alone  as  if  he  were  a  hermit  in  a  cave. 
For  months  together  he  scarcely  met  any  one  outside  of 
his  own  family,  seldom  going  out  save  at  twilight  or  to 
take  the  nearest  way  to  the  desolate  seashore.  Once  a 
year,  or  thereabouts  (so  he  told  a  friend  a  long  while  after), 
he  used  to  make  an  excursion  of  a  few  weeks,  "  in  which 
I  enjoyed  as  much  of  life  as  other  people  do  in  the  whole 
year's  round."  Unnatural  as  this  existence  was,  Hawthorne 
kept  his  health  and  seldom  lost  his  cheerfulness.  He 
read  endlessly  and  he  wrote  unceasingly.  These  were 
his  'prentice  years  of  authorship ;  and  in  them  he  became 
a  master  of  the  craft  of  writing. 

Most  of  his  early  attempts  at  fiction  he  burned ;  but  in 
time  his  hand  became  surer,  and  he  found  that  he  had 
learned  at  last  the  difficult  art  of  story  telling.  His  little 
tales  began  to  be  published  here  and  there  in  monthlies 
and  in  annuals.  Being  anonymous,  or  under  differing 
signatures,  they  did  not  attract  attention  to  the  author; 
but  in  the  newspaper  notices  of  the  periodicals  in  which 
they  appeared,  they  were  often  picked  out  for  praise. 

This  finally  encouraged  Hawthorne  to  gather  a  score 
of  them  into  a  single  volume  published  in  1837  under  the 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE  113 

apt  title  of  "  Twice-Told  Tales."  Although  the  little  book 
had  no  remarkable  sale,  it  won  its  way  steadily ;  and  the 
readers  who  had  enjoyed  Irving's  pleasant  sketches  of 
New  York  character  in  "  Rip  Van  Winkle "  and  the 
"  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow  "  could  not  but  remark  that 
Hawthorne's  pictures  of  New  England  character  revealed 
a  stronger  imagination  and  a  deeper  insight  into  human 
nature.  Delightful  as  was  Irving's  writing,  Hawthorne 
had  a  richer  style  and  a  firmer  grasp  of  the  art  of  fiction. 

After  the  publication  of  this  collection  of  short  stories, 
Hawthorne  ceased  to  be  what  he  once  called  himself  — 
"  the  obscurest  man  of  letters  in  America."  His  class- 
mate Longfellow,  with  whom  he  had  not  been  intimate 
in  college,  reviewed  the  book  with  hearty  commendation. 
Hawthorne  wrote  him  that  hitherto  there  had  "been  no 
warmth  of  approbation,  so  that  I  have  always  written  with 
benumbed  fingers."  Now  at  last  he  basked  in  the  sunshine 
of  public  approval,  and  he  was  encouraged  to  go  on  with  his 
writing.  Yet  it  was  five  years  before  his  next  book  was 
issued,  and  even  then  the  new  volume  was  only  a  second 
series  of  "Twice-Told  Tales,"  collected  from  the  periodicals. 

But  meanwhile  he  had  come  out  into  the  world  again, 
and  mixed  once  more  with  his  fellow-men.  He  had  edited 
a  magazine  for  a  few  months  ;  he  had  held  a  place  for  two 
years  in  the  Boston  customhouse ;  he  had  been  one  of 
those  who  formed  a  settlement  at  Brook  Farm ;  and  he 
had  married  Miss  Sophia  Peabody.  The  marriage  took 
place  in  1842,  and  the  young  couple  moved  to  Concord. 
They  went  to  live  in  the  house  which  had  been  built  for 
Emerson's  grandfather,  and  in  which  Emerson  himself 
had  dwelt  ten  years  before.  Hawthorne  took  for  his  study 
the  room  in  this  old  manse  in  which  Emerson  had  written 
"  Nature  "  ;  and  in  that  room,  during  the  next  few  years, 

AMER.  LIT.  —  8 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


he  wrote  stories  and  sketches  which  were  collected  into 
the  two  volumes  published  in  1846  as  "Mosses  from  an 
Old  Manse." 

These  tales  are  like  those  in  Hawthorne's  earlier  collec- 
tions, but  they  are  unlike  any  stories  ever  written  any- 
where else  by  anybody  else.  They  are  strangely*  inter- 
esting, all  of  them  ;  they  are  novel,  varied,  and  ingenious  ; 
they  are  full  of  fancy  ;  and  they  have  often  an  allegory 
hidden  within,  and  a  profound  moral  also,  never  obtruded, 


The  Old  Manse 

but  to  be  found  easily  by  all  who  take  the  trouble  to  seek 
it.  Here  may  be  the  best  place  to  note  that  these  same 
qualities,  ripened,  perhaps,  and  enriched  by  experience, 
are  to  be  found  again  in  Hawthorne's  final  collection  of 
tales  made  six  years  later,  and  called,  after  the  first  of 
them,  the  "  Snow  Image." 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  115 

Hawthorne  was  happier  in  these  years  of  manhood 
than  he  had  been  in  his  youth.  It  might  almost  be  said 
that  his  marriage  was  the  making  of  him  ;  for  that  had 
brought  him  back  into  the  world  before  it  was  too  late 
—  before  the  doors  of  solitude  were  closed  upon  him 
forever.  Yet  these  early  years  of  wedded  life  were  a 
time  of  struggle ;  for  he  had  lost  money,  and  had  little 
to  live  on. 

Knowing  his  need  of  an  assured  income  to  bring  up  his 
young  family,  some  of  his  friends  in  1846  secured  his 
appointment  as  surveyor  of  the  port  of  Salem,  the  town 
where  he  had  been  born  about  forty  years  before.  He 
remained  in  the  customhouse  for  three  years,  with  in- 
creasing dislike  for  the  work ;  and  then  he  was  suddenly 
removed  to  make  a  place  for  a  politician. 

When  he  went  home  one  day,  earlier  than  usual,  and 
told  his  wife  that  he  had  lost  his  place,  she  exclaimed  : 
"  Oh,  then  you  can  write  your  book ! "  And  when  he  asked 
what  they  were  to  live  on  while  he  was  writing  this  book, 
she  showed  him  the  money  she  had  been  saving  up,  week 
by  week,  out  of  their  household  expenses. 

That  very  afternoon  he  sat  down  and  began  to  write  the 
more  serious  work  of  fiction  he  had  longed  for  leisure  to 
attempt.  It  was  really  the  first  book  he  had  written  since 
the  forgotten  and  unknown  romance.  The  other  volumes 
he  had  published  were  but  collections  of  tales,  while  this 
was  to  be  a  story  long  enough  to  stand  by  itself.  A  broader 
experience  is  needed  to  compose  a  full-grown  novel  than 
to  sketch  a  short  story,  and  the  great  novelists  have  often 
essayed  their  first  elaborate  fictions  when  no  longer  young. 
Scott  was  more  than  forty  when  he  published  the  first  of 
the  Waverley  novels  ;  Thackeray  was  not  far  from  forty 
when  "Vanity  Fair"  was  finished;  George  Eliot  was  al- 


Il6  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

most  forty  when  "  Adam  Bede  "  appeared  ;  and  Hawthorne 
was  forty-six  when  he  sent  forth  the  "  Scarlet  Letter  "  in 
1850. 

With  the  striking  exception  of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," 
no  American  work  of  fiction  has  had  the  quick  and  last- 
ing popularity  of  the  "Scarlet  Letter";  and  while  Mrs. 
Stowe's  story  owed  much  of  its  success  to  the  public  inter- 
est in  the  slavery  question,  Hawthorne's  romance  had 
no  such  outside  aid.  Hawthorne's  study  of  the  Puritan 
life  in  New  England  is  superior  to  Mrs.  Stowe's  novel.  It 
is  a  masterpiece  of  narrative,  every  incident  being  so  aptly 
chosen,  so  skillfully  prepared,  so  well  placed,  that  it  seems 
a  necessary  result  of  the  situation.  Since  the  "  Scarlet 
Letter"  was  written  half  a  century  has  passed,  and  many 
books  highly  praised  when  it  was  first  published  are  now 
left  unread  ;  but  Hawthorne's  great  story  stands  to-day 
higher  than  ever  before  in  the  esteem  of  those  best  fitted 
to  judge. 

The  author  thought  that  the  romance  was  too  somber, 
and  he  relieved  it  with  a  humorous  sketch  of  his  life  in  the 
Salem  customhouse.  The  reading  public  gave  the  book 
so  hearty  a  welcome  that  Hawthorne  was  warmed  out  of 
his  chilly  solitude.  For  the  first  time  he  tasted  popularity, 
and  it  did  him  good.  He  moved  to  Lenox,  and  there  he 
wrote  a  second  long  story,  less  solemn  than  the  first, 
bris.ker  and  brighter,  and  yet  not  without  the  same  solid 
and  serious  merits.  The  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables " 
was  published  in  1851.  It  is  rather  a  romance  than  a 
novel ;  and  in  it  the  author  allowed  his  humor  more  play 
than  had  been  becoming  in  the  "  Scarlet  Letter."  Like 
that,  the  new  story  was  a  study  of  the  life  the  author  best 
knew.  How  well  he  knew  it  may  be  judged  from  Lowell's 
declaration  that  the  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  "  is  "the 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE  117 

most  valuable  contribution  to  New  England  history  that 
has  yet  been  made." 

A  true  historian  Hawthorne  might  be  in  his  understand- 
ing of  the  conditions  of  life  in  the  old  colony  days,  and  of 
the  feelings  of  the  men  and  women  who  then  walked  the 
streets  of  Salem  ;  but  a  story  teller  he  was  above  all  else  — 
a  teller  of  tales  to  whom  every  lover  of  literature  could  not 
but  listen  eagerly.  And  in  the  next  volume  he  made  ready 
for  the  press  he  presented  himself  simply  as  a  teller  of 
tales.  The  "  Wonder  Book  for  Girls  and  Boys,"  written 
in  the  same  year  as  the  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  is 
the  book  which  has  most  endeared  Hawthorne  to  Ameri- 
can children,  who  have  been  charmed  with  the  ease  and  the 
grace  with  which  he  set  forth  anew  the  marvelous  myths  of 
antiqUity. 

In  the  "Wonder  Book"  he  retold  the  legends  of  the 
"  Gorgon's  Head  "  and  the  "  Three  Golden  Apples  "  and 
the  "Chimaera,"  and  in  "Tanglewood  Tales"  (which  was 
published  two  or  three  years  later,  but  which  may  be  con- 
sidered as  a  second  volume  of  the  "Wonder  Book")  he 
described  the  adventures  of  those  who  went  forth  to  seek 
the  "  Golden  Fleece,"  to  explore  the  labyrinth  of  the 
"Minotaur,"  and  to  sow  the  "Dragon's  Teeth." 

His  next  story  for  grown-up  people  was  called  the 
"  Blithedale  Romance,"  and  it  was  published  in  1852.  It 
was  derived  more  or  less  closely  from  the  memory  of  his 
own  experiences  a  few  years  before  at  Brook  Farm,  where  a 
little  group  of  reformers  and  men  of  letters,  led  astray  for 
a  moment  by  some  of  the  notions  of  the  time,  sought  to 
simplify  their  lives  by  doing  themselves  the  rough  work  of 
a  New  England  farm.  The  most  valuable  result  of  this 
experiment  is  perhaps  Hawthorne's  story ;  and  that  story 
is  generally  held  to  be  the  least  interesting  and  the  least 


Il8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

satisfactory  of  all  that  Hawthorne  wrote.  Here,  indeed, 
was  the  instance  where  he  was  not  fortunate  in  his  choice 
of  a  subject. 

In  the  year  the  "Blithedale  Romance"  was  published 
Hawthorne  went  back  once  more  to  Concord  ;  and  there 
he  bought  the  house  of  Mr.  Alcott,  the  father  of  the 
author  of  "  Little  Women."  This  house  he  called  "The 
Wayside,"  and  it  was  the  home  of  the  family  until  Haw- 
thorne's death.  But  they  did  not  live  in  it  long  at  first. 
One  of  the  candidates  for  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States  was  Hawthorne's  college  friend,  Franklin  Pierce,  for 
whom  he  prepared  a  campaign  biography  —  just  as  Mr. 
Howells  in  1876  wrote  the  life  of  Hayes  when  he  was  a 
candidate  for  the  presidency.  When  Pierce  became  Presi- 
dent he  appointed  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  consul  to  Liver- 
pool, England,  one  of  the  best-paid  offices  under  the  gov- 
ernment. Hawthorne  lived  in  England  for  four  years ; 
and  then  he  made  a  journey  to  France,  Switzerland,  and 
Italy,  lingering  in  Rome  long  enough  to  gather  materials 
for  a  new  story,  and  returning  in  1859  to  England  to 
write  it. 

This  new  story,  published  early  in  1860,  was  the  "Mar- 
ble Faun,  a  Romance  of  Monte  Beni "  (known  in  Eng- 
land as  "Transformation,"  because  the  British  publisher 
chose  to  change  the  title).  It  was  a  tale  of  life  in  Italy. 
The  beauty  of  the  story  is  felt  by  all  its  readers,  and  its 
power  cannot  be  denied.  But  the  book  abounds  in  shad- 
owy suggestions ;  and  some  of  its  outlines  are  so  misty 
that  we  are  still  a  little  in  doubt  as  to  what  did  happen 
to  all  of  the  characters.  Never  before  had  Hawthorne 
been  more  skillfully  mysterious ;  and  never  before  had 
the  magic  of  his  manner  been  more  charming  to  his 
readers. 


120 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


Perhaps  the  vagueness  of  this  story  was  the  result  of  its 
scene  being  laid  upon  a  foreign  soil,  whereon  Hawthorne 
did  not  feel  himself  absolutely  at  home.  At  the  very  time 
he  was  planning  the  "  Marble  Faun  "  he  recorded  in  his 
notebook  that  "it  needs  the  native  air  to  give  life  a 
reality.  "  Despite  its  hazily  hinted  plot,  the  "  Marble  Faun" 
is  cherished  by  Hawthorne's  admirers  as  second  only  to 
the  "Scarlet  Letter."  And,  as  it  happened,  it  was  the 
last  of  his  romances  he  was  to  live  long  enough  to  complete. 


The  Wayside 

In  i860  Hawthorne  returned  to  his  native  air,  settling 
down  in  "The  Wayside"  at  Concord.  He  planted  trees, 
laid  out  walks,  enlarged  the  house,  and  made  himself  at 
home.  He  had  a  theme  for  a  new  romance;  and  this  he 
sketched  out  two  or  three  times,  and  differently  every 
time,  but  never  to  his  own  satisfaction. 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE  121 

Failing  to  get  the  strange  subject  of  this  proposed  tale 
into  the  perfect  form  he  sought,  Hawthorne  turned  from 
it  for  a  while.  He  had  always  kept  a  journal,  writing  in 
it  freely  when  the  mood  was  on  him,  setting  down  sugges- 
tions for  stories,  recording  visits  and  conversations,  and 
describing  people  and  places.  From  this  storehouse  he 
now  selected  passages  concerning  England  and  the  Eng- 
lish, and  these  he  wove  into  a  series  of  delightful  chapters, 
published  in  1863.  The  title  which  Hawthorne  gave  to 
these  collected  papers  was  "Our  Old  Home"  —and  the 
title  itself  was  an  evidence  of  the  kindly  and  fraternal 
feeling  of  Americans  toward  the  elder  branch  of  the  race. 
This  same  gentle  liking  inspired  the  English  pages  of 
living's  "  Sketch  Book  "  ;  and  it  also  controlled  the  criti- 
cism in  Emerson's  acute  "  English  Traits." 

After  the  publication  of  this  volume  of  descriptive 
papers,  Hawthorne  returned  to  his  story,  and  finally  man- 
aged to  write  the  earlier  chapters.  But  his  health  was  fail- 
ing fast,  and  he  was  not  able  to  finish  what  he  had  begun. 
He  made  several  little  journeys  in  search  of  relief;  and  it 
was  on  one  of  these,  a  trip  to  the  White  Mountains  with 
Franklin  Pierce,  that  he  died.  His  death  took  place  at 
Plymouth,  New  Hampshire,  a  little  before  midnight  on 
May  1 8,  1864;  and  on  the  twenty-third  he  was  buried  at 
Concord  in  the  cemetery  called  "Sleepy  Hollow." 

Emerson  and  Longfellow,  Lowell  and  Whittier,  were  at 
the  funeral.  Longfellow  wrote  in  his  diary  :  "  It  was  a 
lovely  day ;  the  village  all  sunshine  and  blossoms  and  the 
song  of  birds.  You  cannot  imagine  anything  at  once  more 
sad  and  beautiful.  He  is  buried  on  a  hilltop  under  the 
pines." 

And  this  funeral  of  his  classmate  suggested  to  Long- 
fellow one  of  his  most  tender  poems:  — 


122  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

Now  I  look  back,  and  meadow,  manse,  and  stream 

Dimly  my  thought  defines  ; 
I  only  see  —  a  dream  within  a  dream  — 

The  hilltop  hearsed  with  pines. 

****** 
There  in  seclusion  and  remote  from  men 

The  wizard  hand  lies  cold, 
Which  at  its  topmost  speed  let  fall  the  pen, 

And  left  the  tale  half  told. 

At  intervals  since  Hawthorne's  death  all  the  writings  he 
left  behind  him  have  been  published,  one  after  another  — 
his  private  letters,  the  notebooks  he  kept  irregularly  in 
America  and  in  Europe,  and  the  several  efforts  he  made 
to  shape  the  story  he  finally  left  unfinished  when  he  died. 
But  the  publication  of  these  things  never  intended  for  the 
public  has  not  interfered  with  his  fame.  Though  they  did 
not  add  to  it,  they  did  not  detract  from  it.  They  took  us 
in  some  measure  into  his  workshop,  but  they  could  not 
reveal  the  secret  of  his  art :  that  died  with  him.  They 
showed  that  his  English  was  always  pure  and  clear,  and 
that  his  style  was  always  simple  and  noble.  They  revealed 
little  or  nothing  of  real  value  for  an  estimate  of  the  author, 
though  they  served  to  confirm  the  belief  that  he  brooded 
long  over  his  tales  and  his  romances,  shaping  each  to  the 
inward  moral  it  was  to  declare,  and  perfecting  each  slowly 
until  it  had  attained  in  every  detail  the  symmetry  which 
should  satisfy  his  own  most  exacting  taste. 

Many  have  marveled  that  Hawthorne  should  have  been 
able  to  write  romances  here  in  this  new  country  of  ours, 
which  seems  to  lack  all  that  others  have  considered  need- 
ful for  romance ;  but  to  a  seer  of  his  insight  this  was  no 
difficult  matter.  Hawthorne  was  able  to  find  romance  not 
in  external  trappings  and  picturesque  fancy  'costumes,  but 
deep  down  in  the  soul  of  man  himself. 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE  123 

Beside  this  power  of  entering  into  the  recesses  of  the 
human  heart,  he  had  not  only  a  vigorous  imagination^  not 
only  great  ingenuity  in  inventing  incident,  not  only  the 
gift  of  the  story-telling  faculty  in  a  high  degree,  but  also* 
a  profound  respect  for  the  art  of  narrative  ;  and  these 
qualities  all  combined  to  make  him  the  most  accomplished 
artist  in  fiction  that  America  has  yet  produced. 

QUESTIONS.  —  What  can  you  say  of  the  Hawthorne  family;  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  early  life  and  of  his  education? 

Describe  Hawthorne's  life  during  his  early  years  of  authorship. 

What  characteristics  of  Hawthorne's  writings  enabled  him  to  find  a 
growing  audience  among  the  admirers  of  Irving  and  Cooper? 

How  was  Hawthorne  brought  back  into  the  world  before  the  doors  of 
solitude  were  closed  upon  him  forever? 

How  did  he  find  the  opportunity  to  begin  the  work  of  his  life? 

Compare  the  "  Scarlet  Letter  "  with  the  only  American  work  of  fic- 
tion which  has  had  as  quick  and  lasting  a  popularity  as  it  has  enjoyed. 

Tell  how  he  succeeded  in  interesting  children  in  one  of  his  works. 

How  did  Hawthorne  suddenly  find  his  course  of  life  turned  in  a  new 
direction  ? 

How  may  Hawthorne's  life  for  the  next  few  years  account  for  the 
shadowy  character  of  the  most  skillfully  mysterious  of  his  stories  ? 

What  evidence  may  the  reader  of  Hawthorne  find  in  his  works  that 
he  shared  the  sentiments  of  at  least  two  other  famous  American  writers 
toward  the  elder  branch  of  the  English-speaking  race? 

What  qualities  combined  to  make  Hawthorne  the  greatest  American 
writer  of  fiction  that  has  yet  appeared  ? 


NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  editions  of  Hawthorne's  works  are  those  issued  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  (Popular  edition,  8  vols.,  $12.  Riverside  edition,  with 
notes  by  Mr.  G.  P.  Lathrop,  13  vols.,  $26).  Certain  of  the  earlier  books  can  now 
be  had  in  cheap  editions. 

There  are  biographies  by  Mr.  .G.  P.  Lathrop,  Mr.  Henry  James,  Mr.  Julian 
Hawthorne,  and  Mr.  M.  D.  Conway. 

For  criticism,  see  G.  W.  Curtis  (in  "  Literary  and  Social  Studies")  ;  Mr.  T.  W. 
Higginson  (in  "  Short  Studies  of  American  Authors  ")  ;  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  (in 
"Hours  in  a  Library")  ;  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "American 
Literature  ")  ;  and  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells  (in  "  My  Literary  Passions  ") , 


X     HENRY   WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW 

IN  the  first  ten  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  there 
were  born  in  New  England  five  of  the  foremost  authors 
of  America.  Emerson  and  Hawthorne  were  respectively 
four  and  three  years  older  than  Longfellow.  Whittier 
and  Holmes  were  respectively  ten  months  and  two  years 
younger.  As  they  grew  up  and  began  to  write,  and  got  to 
know  one  another,  these  authors  became  friends ;  and  their 
friendship  lasted  with  their  lives.  One  after  another  they 
all  gained  fame ;  and  although  not  the  greatest  of  the  five, 
perhaps,  Longfellow  was  always  the  most  popular.  Not 

124 


HENRY    WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW  125 

merely  in  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  but  in 
Canada  and  Australia  and  India,  and  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken,  there  were  readers  in  plenty  for  the 
gentle,  the  manly,  the  beautiful  verses  of  Longfellow. 

His  mother's  father  had  been  a  general   in  the  Revolu- 
tionary army.     His  mother's  brother  (after  whom  he  was 
named)  had  been  an  officer  in  the  American  navy,  losing 
his  life  in  Preble's  attack  on  Tripoli.     His  father,  once  a 
member  of  Congress,  was  one  of  the  leading  lawyers  of 
Portland.      And  it  was 
in  that  pleasant   Maine 
city  that   Henry  Wads- 
worth    Longfellow    was 
born,    on   February    27, 
1807.     There  he  passed 
his    childhood.       There 
he   got   that   liking   for 
the   sea   and    for    ships 

and    for    sailors    which  -^REL" 

was  to  give  a  salt-water 
savor  to  so  many  of  his 
ballads.  There,  as  he 

.        ,          ,        ,  Longfellow's  Birthplace 

grew    to     boyhood,    he 

browsed   amid   the   books  of   his  father's   ample  library, 

feeling  his  love  for  literature  steadily  growing. 

He  was  a  schoolboy  of  twelve  when  the  first  numbers 
of  Irving's  "Sketch  Book"  appeared,  and  he  read  it  "with 
ever-increasing  wonder  and  delight,  spellbound  by  its 
pleasant  humor,  its  melancholy  tenderness,  its  atmosphere 
of  reverie."  A  few  months  before  the  "  Sketch  Book  " 
began,  Bryant  had  published  his  "  Thanatopsis,"  and 
others  of  his  earlier  poems  followed  soon  ;  so  the  school- 
boy in  Portland  came  under  the  influence  of  Bryant's  poetry 


126  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

almost  at  the  same  time  that  he  felt  the  charm  of  Irving's 
prose.  When  he  was  only  thirteen  the  young  Longfellow 
began  to  write  verses  of  his  own,  some  of  which  were 
printed  in  the  newspapers.  He  was  only  fourteen  when 
he  passed  the  entrance  examinations  of  Bowdoin  College, 
where  he  was  to  have  Hawthorne  as  a  classmate. 

Long  before  his  college  course  was  over  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  become  a  man  of  letters.  In  his  last  year 
at  Bowdoin,  being  then  eighteen,  he  wrote  to  his  father  : 
"  I  most  eagerly  aspire  after  future  eminence  in  literature  ; 
my  whole  soul  burns  ardently  for  it,  and  every  earthly 
thought  centers  in  it."  But  here  in  America,  in  1825,  no 
man  could  hope  to  support  himself  by  prose  and  verse. 

Fortunately  just  then  a  professorship  of  modern  lan- 
guages was  founded  in  Bowdoin,  and  the  position  was  offered 
to  Longfellow,  with  permission  to  spend  several  years  in 
Europe  fitting  himself  for  his  duties.  He  accepted  eagerly  ; 
and  his  sojourn  in  France  and  Spain,  in  Italy  and  Germany, 
made  him  master  of  the  four  great  European  languages 
with  their  marvelous  literatures.  He  studied  hard  and 
wrote  little  while  he  was  away.  At  last,  in  1829,  being 
then  twenty-two,  he  returned  to  his  native  land  and  settled 
down  to  teach  his  fellow-countrymen  what  he  had  learned 
abroad. 

In  1831  he  married  Miss  Mary  Potter.  In  addition  to 
his  work  in  the  college,  he  found  time  to  write  critical  arti- 
cles on  foreign  literature.  He  seems  to  have  had  but  few 
poetic  impulses  at  this  period ;  and  his  thoughts  expressed 
themselves  more  naturally  in  prose.  The  influence  of 
Irving  is  visible  in  a  series  of  rambling  travel  sketches, 
finally  revised  for  publication  as  a  book  in  1833,  under  the 
title  "  Outre-Mer  :  a  Pilgrimage  beyond  the  Sea."  It  has 
not  a  little  of  the  charm  of  the  "  Sketch  Book,"  with  a 


HENRY   WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW 


127 


deeper  poetic  grace  of  its  own  and  a  more  romantic  touch. 
The  year  after  this  first  venture  into  literature,  Long- 
fellow was  called  to  the  professorship  of  modern  lan- 
guages at  Harvard  College.  Again  he  went  to  Europe 
for  further  study,  being  absent  for  a  year  and  a  half ; 
but  his  journey  was  saddened  by  the  death  of  his  wife. 
Toward  the  end  of  1836  he  took  up  his  abode  in  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  was  to  reside  for  the  rest  of  his  life  —  for 


Longfellow's  Residence.  Cambridge.  Mass. 

forty-five  years.  He  was  made  to  feel  at  home  in  the 
society  of  the  scholars  who  clustered  about  Harvard,  then 
almost  the  sole  center  of  culture  in  the  country. 

His  work  for  the  college  was  not  so  exacting  that  he 
had  not  time  for  literature.  The  impulse  to  write  poetry 
returned ;  yet  the  next  book  he  published  was  the  prose 
"Hyperion,"  which  appeared  in  1839,  and  which,  though 
it  has  little  plot  or  action,  may  be  called  a  romance.  The 


128  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

youthful  and  poetic  hero,  a  passionate  pilgrim  in  Europe, 
was,  more  or  less,  a  reflection  of  Longfellow  himself. 

A  few  months  later,  in  the  same  year,  he  published  his 
first  volume  of  poetry  —  "Voices  of  the  Night,"  in  which 
he  reprinted  certain  of  his  earlier  verses,  most  of  them 
written  while  he  was  at  Bowdoin.  Some  of  these  boyish 
verses  show  the  influence  of  Bryant,  and  others  reveal  to 
us  that  the  young  poet  had  not  yet  looked  at  life  for  him- 
self, but  still  saw  it  through  the  stained-glass  windows  of 
European  tradition.  The  same  volume  contained  also 
some  more  recent  poems :  the  "  Beleaguered  City,"  and 
the  "Reaper  and  the  Flowers,"  and  the  "Psalm  of  Life" 
—  perhaps  the  first  of  his  poems  to  win  a  swift  and  abid- 
ing popularity.  These  lyrics  testified  that  Longfellow 
was  beginning  to  have  a  style  of  his  own.  As  Hawthorne 
wrote  to  him,  "  Nothing  equal  to  them  was  ever  written  in 
this  world  —  this  western  world,  I  mean." 

Certainly  no  American  author  had  yet  written  any 
poem  of  the  kind  so  good  as  the  best  of  those  in  Long- 
fellow's volume  of  "  Ballads "  printed  two  years  later. 
Better  than  any  other  American  poet  Longfellow  had 
mastered  the  difficulties  of  the  story  in  song ;  and  he 
knew  how  to  combine  the  swiftness  and  the  picturesque- 
ness  the  ballad  requires.  His  ballads  have  more  of 
the  old-time  magic,  more  of  the  early  simplicity,  than 
those  of  any  other  modern  English  author.  Of  its  kind, 
there  is  nothing  better  in  the  language  than  the  "  Skele- 
ton in  Armor,"  with  its  splendid  lyric  swing ;  and  the 
"Village  Blacksmith"  and  the  "  Wreck  of  the  'Hesperus '  " 
are  almost  as  good  in  their  humble  sphere.  "  Excelsior," 
in  the  same  volume,  voices  the  noble  aspirations  of  youth, 
and  has  been  taken  to  heart  by  thousands  of  boys  and 
girls. 


HENRY  WADS  WORTH  LONGFELLOW      129 

He  went  to  Europe  again  in  1842  for  his  health;  and 
on  the  voyage  home  he  wrote  eight  "  Poems  on  Slavery," 
which  he  published  soon  after  he  landed.  The  next  year 
he  married  Miss  Frances  Appleton.  About  the  same 
time  he  published  the  "  Spanish  Student,"  a  play  not 
intended  for  the  theater,  and  lacking  the  dramatic  action 
the  stage  demands.  Neither  the  "  Poems  on  Slavery " 
nor  the  " Spanish  Student"  showed  him  at  his  best;  but 
three  years  after  the  latter  he  published  the  "  Belfry  of 
Bruges,"  in  which  were  to  be  found  more  than  one  of  his 
finest  poems,  among  them  the  "Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs" 
and  the  "Arsenal  at  Springfield." 

Longfellow  wrote  a  cordial  review  of  Hawthorne's 
"Twice-Told  Tales,"  and  it  was  from  Hawthorne  that 
he  heard  the  pathetic  legend  of  the  two  Acadian  lovers 
parted  on  their  marriage  morn,  when  the  people  of  the 
French  province  were  shipped  away  by  the  British  authori- 
ties. "  If  you  do  not  want  this  incident  for  a  tale,  let  me 
have  it  for  a  poem,"  he  said  ;  and  Hawthorne  willingly  gave 
it  up. 

This  was  the  germ  of  "  Evangeline,"  which  Longfellow 
published  in  1847,  and  which  was  accepted  at  once  as  his 
masterpiece.  It  was  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most 
touching  tale  in  verse  yet  told  by  any  American  poet ; 
and  its  charm  was  increased  greatly  by  the  skill  with 
which  the  natural  scenery  of  America,  and  our  varying 
seasons,  were  used  to  furnish  a  background  before  which 
the  simple  figures  of  the  story  moved  with  fidelity  to  life. 
Even  the  strange  proper  names  were  invested  with  magic. 

In  1849  Longfellow  published  his  last  prose  book, 
"Kavanagh,"  a  dreamy  tale  which  Hawthorne  hailed  as 
a  true  picture  of  life  —  "as  true  as  those  reflections  of  the 
trees  and  banks  that  I  used  to  see  in  Concord ;  but  refined 

AMER.  LIT.  —  9 


130  AMERICAN   LITERATURE- 

to  a  higher  degree  than  they,  as  if  the  reflection  were  itself 
reflected."  The  next  year  he  gathered  into  a  volume 
called  the  "  Seaside  and  the  Fireside "  a  score  of  short 
poems,  including  the  "Fire  of  Driftwood"  and  the  "Build- 
ing of  the  Ship."  With  the  sea  as  a  subject,  Longfellow 
had  always  a  double  share  of  inspiration,  for  he  had  re- 
tained in  manhood  his  boyish  love  for  the  deep,  and  his 
sympathetic  understanding  of  its  mysteries. 

As  his  poetic  powers  ripened  and  won  prompt  recogni- 
tion, the  daily  labor  of  the  classroom  became  more  irksome 
to  him,  and  at  last,  in  1854,  he  resigned  his  professorship. 
But  he  continued  to  reside  in  Cambridge,  dwelling  in  the 
Craigie  House,  which  had  been  Washington's  headquarters. 
Longfellow's  father-in-law  had  bought  the  house  for  him, 
and  it  is  now  known  as  the  Longfellow  House.  The  culti- 
vated society  of  the  little  town  was  very  congenial,  and  he 
had  many  friends  in  Boston  and  in  Concord. 

Like  all  true  artists,  he  was  greatly  interested  in  his 
craft,  and  was  fond  of  verse-making  experiments.  He  had 
a  delicate  ear,  and  he  felt  the  fitness  of  certain  measures 
for  certain  themes.  For  "  Evangeline  "  he  chose  a  form 
of  verse  suggested  by  the  verse  of  the  "  Iliad  "  and  the 
"^Eneid";  and  how  well  this  suited  his  subject  can  be 
seen  by  reading  this  description  of  the  song  of  the  mock- 
ing-bird :  — 

Then  from  a  neighboring  thicket  the  mocking-bird,  wildest  of  singers, 

Swinging  aloft  on  a  willow  spray  that  hung  o'er  the  water, 

Shook  from  his  little  throat  such  floods  of  delirious  music, 

That  the   whole  air  and  the  woods  and  the  waves  seemed  silent   to 

listen. 

Plaintive  at  first  were  the  tones  and  sad ;  then  soaring  to  madness 
Seemed  they  to  follow  or  guide  the  revel  of  frenzied  Bacchantes. 
Single  notes  were  then  heard,  in  sorrowful  low  lamentation ; 
Till,  having  gathered  them  all,  he  flung  them  abroad  in  derision, 


HENRY   WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW  131 

As  when,  after  a  storm,  a  gust  of  wind  through  the  tree-tops 
Shakes  down  the  rattling  rain  in  a  crystal  shower  on  the  branches. 

Now  compare  the  same  description  as  Longfellow  himselt 
rewrote  it  in  the  customary  rimed  couplets  :  — 

Upon  a  spray  that  overhung  the  stream. 
The  mocking-bird,  awaking  from  his  dream, 
Poured  such  delirious  music  from  his  throat 
That  all  the  air  seemed  listening  to  his  note. 
Plaintive  at  first  the  song  began,  and  slow ; 
It  breathed  of  sadness,  and  of  pain  and  woe  ; 
Then,  gathering  all  his  notes,  abroad  he  flung 
The  multitudinous  music  from  his  tongue,  — 
As,  after  showers,  a  sudden  gust  again 
Upon  the  leaves  shakes  down  the  rattling  rain. 

In  his  next  long  poem  Longfellow  attempted  another 
new  meter,  borrowed  from  the  old  Finnish  poets.  He  was 
always  interested  in  the  American  Indian,  and  one  of  his 
earliest  poems  was  the  "  Burial  of  the  Minnisink,"  as  one 
of  his  latest  was  the  "Revenge  of  Rain-in-the-face."  He 
now  decided  that  the  mythical  legends  of  the  red  men  could 
be  woven  into  a  poem  of  which  an  Indian  should  be  the 
central  figure.  The  simple  rhythm  was  exactly  suited  to 
the  simple  story.  "  Hiawatha"  was  published  in  1855,  and 
its  instant  success  surpassed  that  of  "  Evangeline,"  which 
was  its  only  rival  among  the  longer  poems  of  American 
authors  upon  a  peculiarly  American  subject.  The  easy 
verses  sang  themselves  into  the  memory  of  all  who  read 
the  poem  ;  and  the  descriptions  of  nature  delighted  all 
who  had  kept  their  eyes  open  as  they  walked  through  our 
American  woods  and  fields. 

Encouraged  by  the  hearty  welcome  given  to  these  two 
American  poems,  Longfellow,  in  1858;  published  a  third, 
the  "Courtship  of  Miles  Standish."  In  this  he  told  no 


132  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

pathetic  tale  of  parted  lovers,  nor  did  he  draw  on  the  quaint 
lore  of  the  red  men  ;  he  took  his  story  from  the  annals  of 
his  own  ancestors,  the  sturdy  founders  of  New  England. 
As  it  happened,  he  himself  (like  his  fellow-poet,  Bryant) 
was  a  direct  descendant  of  John  Alden  and  Priscilla,  the 
Puritan  maiden  whose  wooing  he  narrated.  The  "  Court- 
ship of  Miles  Standish  "  is  only  less  popular  than  its  prede- 
cessors, "  Evangeline  "  and  "Hiawatha";  all  three  have 
been  taken  to  heart  by  the  American  people  ;  all  were 
composed  during  the  brightest  years  of  the  poet's  life, 
when  his  family  were  growing  up  about  him,  when  he  was 
in  the  full  possession  of  his  powers,  and  when  he  had 
already  achieved  fame. 

Suddenly  an  awful  calamity  befell  him  in  the  death  of  his 
wife  by  accident.  One  sad  day  in  July,  1861,  Mrs.  Long- 
fellow's light  dress  caught  fire  from  a  match  fallen  on 
the  floor.  The  poet  rushed  to  her  aid ;  but  despite  all 
his  efforts  her  injuries  were  fatal.  She  died  the  next 
morning.  Longfellow  himself  was  so  severely  burned  that 
he  was  unable  to  be  present  at  her  funeral. 

When  his  wounds  healed  he  was  still  broken  in  spirit. 
To  give  himself  occupation,  and  to  help  him  bear  his  sor- 
row, he  translated  into  English  the  "  Divine  Comedy  "  of 
Dante.  He  found  the  labor  of  translation  restful  and  con- 
soling, as  Bryant  had  also  found  it  after  the  death  of  his 
wife.  In  time  Longfellow  completed  his  version  of  the 
great  Italian  poem,  and  it  was  published  in  1867.  But 
while  laboring  on  this  long  task  he  had  not  given  up 
original  composition.  In  1863  he  had  sent  forth  a  volume 
of  poems  containing  the  ringing  lines  on  the  sinking  of 
the  "Cumberland";  and  in  1867  another  collection  in 
which  was  included  his  touching  poem  on  the  burial  of 
Hawthorne. 


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134  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

During  these  years  also  Longfellow  was  engaged  on  a 
I  work  exactly  suited  to  his  powers.  As  a  poet  he  was  not 
primarily  a  thinker,  like  Emerson,  nor  was  he  chiefly  a 
musician  in  verse,  like  Poe ;  he  was  above  all  a  ballad 
singer,  a  teller  of  stories  fit  to  be  said  or  sung.  Certain 
of  his  friends  were  in  the  habit  of  spending  the  summer 
at  the  old  tavern  of  Sudbury,  and  this  suggested  to  the 
poet  the  framework  of  a  book.  He  has  represented  a 
group  of  guests  gathered  about  the  fire,  and  beguiling  the 
time  with  story  telling.  The  first  part  of  these  "  Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn  "  was  published  in  1863,  and  two  other  parts 
followed  in  1872  and  1873.  Among  the  tales  are  some  of 
Longfellow's  best  ballads  —  such  as  "Paul  Revere's  Ride," 
"King  Robert  of  Sicily,"  and  "  Scanderbeg." 

In  the  spring  of  1868  Longfellow  went  with  his  daugh- 
ters to  Europe,  and  received  everywhere  an  admiring  wel- 
come. In  England  both  Oxford  and  Cambridge  conferred 
honorary  degrees  on  him  ;  and  the  Queen  invited  him  to 
dine  with  her  at  Windsor  Castle.  He  spent  the  winter  in 
Rome,  and  came  home  in  1869. 

After  his  return  Longfellow  took  up  and  finished  his 
longest  work —  "  Christus,  a  Mystery,"  in  which  he  finally 
combined  the  "Divine  Tragedy,"  the  "Golden  Legend," 
and  the  "  New  England  Tragedies."  His  liking  for  the 
dramatic  form  grew  in  his  later  years  ;  and  the  "  Masque 
of  Pandora,"  which  he  published  in  1875,  was  actually  set 
to  music  and  sung  on  the  stage,  but  with  little  success. 
Afterward  he  wrote  another  tragedy  —  "  Judas  Macca- 
beeus  " ;  and  after  his  death  yet  another,  "  Michael  Angelo," 
was  found  almost  finished  in  his  desk.  There  are  fine 
passages  in  all  these  poems  in  dialogue ;  but  no  one  of  his 
attempts  at  play-making  was  received  with  the  popular 
approval  which  greeted  his  songs  and  his  sonnets. 


HENRY  WADSWORTH   LONGFELLOW  135 

Two  of  the  longer  of  his  later  poems  —  the  "Hanging 
of  the  Crane"  (1874)  and  "  Keramos "  (1878) —showed 
that  his  hand  had  not  lost  its  cunning  as  the  poet  grew 
older ;  and  nothing  he  had  written  exceeded  in  sonorous 
rhythm  and  in  lofty  sentiment  the  poem  which  he  read  in 
1875  at  tne  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  graduation  from 
Bowdoin,  and  which  he  called  "Morituri  Saluiamus " 
(  "  We  who  are  about  to  die  salute  you  " ). 

His  poetic  gift  continued  to  ripen  and  to  bear  mellow 
fruit  to  the  end  of  his  life  ;  and  among  the  lyrics  in  his 
final  volumes  —  "Ultima  Thule,"  published  in  1880,  and 
"In  the  Harbor,"  printed  after  his  death  in  1882  —  were 
poems  as  tender  and  as  delicate  in  their  strength  as  any 
he  had  written  in  his  youth :  the  "  Chamber  over  the 
Gate,"  for  example,  and  the  very  last  verses  he  ever  wrote 
-the  "Bells  of  San  Bias." 

It  was  on  March  15,  1882,  when  Longfellow  had  just 
celebrated  his  seventy-fifth  birthday,  that  he  penned  the 
final  lines  of  this  final  poem  :  — 

Out  of  the  shadows  of  night 
The  world  rolls  into  light. 

It  is  daybreak  everywhere. 

The  eighteenth  was  on  »  Saturday ;  and  in  the  afternoon 
there  came  four  schoolboys  from  Boston,  who  had  asked 
permission  to  visit  him.  He  showed  them  the  view  of  the 
Charles  from  the  window  of  his  study,  and  with  his  cus- 
tomary kindness  he  wrote  his  autograph  in  their  albums. 
That  night  he  was  seized  with  pain  ;  but  he  would  not  dis- 
turb the  household  until  the  morning.  He  lingered  a  weeK, 
and  died  on  Friday,  March  24,  1882.  He  was  buried  the 
next  Sunday  in  Mount  Auburn  Cemetery,  "  under  the 
gently  falling  snow." 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Longfellow  is  the  most  popular  poet  yet  born  in  Amer- 
ica ;  and  if  we  can  measure  popular  approval  by  the  wide- 
spread sale  of  his  successive  volumes,  he  was  probably  the 
most  popular  poet  of  the  English  language  in  this  century. 
Part  of  his  popularity  is  due  to  his  healthy  mind,  his  calm 
spirit,  his  vigorous  sympathy.  His  thought,  though  often 
deep,  was  never  obscure.  His  lyrics  had  always  a  grace 
that  took  the  ear  with  delight.  They  have  a  singing  sim- 
plicity, caught,  it  may  be,  from  the  German  lyrists,  such  as 
Uhland  or  Heine.  This  simplicity  was  the  result  of  rare 
artistic  repression  ;  it  was  not  due  to  any  poverty  of  intel- 
lect. 

Like  Victor  Hugo  in  France,  Longfellow  in  America 
was  the  poet  of  childhood.  And  as  he  understood  the 
children,  so  he  also  sympathized  with  the  poor,  the  toiling, 
the  lowly  —  not  looking  down  on  them,  but  glorifying  their 
labor,  and  declaring  the  necessity  of  it  and  the  nobility  of 
work.  He  could  make  the  barest  life  seem  radiant  with 
beauty.  He  had  acquired  the  culture  of  all  lands,  but  he 
understood  also  the  message  of  his  own  country.  He 
thought  that  the  best  that  Europe  could  bring  was  none 
too  good  for  the  plain  people  of  America.  He  was  a  true 
American,  not  only  in  his  stalwa'rt  patriotism  in  the  hour 
of  trial,  but  in  his  loving  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of 
human  equality,  and  in  his  belief  and  trust  in  his  fellow- 
man. 

QUESTIONS.  —  What  was  Longfellow's  place  among  the  men  who 
formed  a  remarkable  group  in  New  England  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
present  century? 

Speak  of  Longfellow's  family  connections ;  of  his  boyhood ;  and  of 
his  opportunities  for  gaining  an  education. 

In  what  official  way  was  Longfellow's  scholarship  recognized  by  two 
institutions  of  learning? 


HENRY   WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW  137 

In  what  early  works  does  Longfellow  show  the  influence  of  two 
earlier  American  authors — one  a  writer  in  prose,  the  other  in  verse? 

By  what  one  of  his  poems  did  Longfellow  win  a  swift  and  abiding 
popularity  ? 

What  is  the  secret  of  his  success  in  the  kind  of  poems  of  which  the 
"  Skeleton  in  Armor  "  is  an  example? 

What  events  of  importance  to  Longfellow  clustered  around  the  year 
1843? 

Mention  the  circumstances  under  which  Longfellow  came  to  write 
the  most  beautiful  tale  in  verse  that  had  yet  been  told  by  any  American 
poet. 

How  was  Longfellow's  last  prose  work  characterized  by  Hawthorne  ? 

How  is  Longfellow's  skill  in  versification  shown  in  his  poems? 

What  American  subjects  now  furnished  Longfellow  with  the  themes 
of  two  poems  which  rivaled  in  popularity  even  his  story  of  the  Acadian 
exiles  ? 

What  did  Longfellow  do  after  the  death  of  his  wife? 

Discuss  Longfellow's  dramatic  work. 

Give  the  titles  of  ten  of  Longfellow's  poems  not  elsewhere  referred 
to  in  these  questions. 

Characterize  Longfellow  as  a  man  and  as  a  poet. 

NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Longfellow's  works  is  that  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  (n  vols.,  $16.50).  The  Cambridge  edition  contains  all 
the  poems  in  a  single  volume  ($2).  "  Evangeline,"  the  "Courtship  of  Miles 
Standish,"  "  Hiawatha,"  the  "  Children's  Hour,"  etc.,  the  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside 
Inn,"  the  "  Building  of  the  Ship,"  etc.,  can  be  had  as  separate  numbers  of  the 
Riverside  Literature  series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  15  cents). 

The  best  life  of  Longfellow  is  that  written  by  his  brother,  Samuel,  and  contain- 
ing abundant  extracts  from  his  journal  and  correspondence  (Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  3  vols.,  $6). 

For  criticism,  see  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  (in  "American  Poets");  Mr.  H.  E. 
Scudder  (in  "  Men  and  Letters  ")  ,  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of 
"American  Literature");  Mr.  A.  Lang  (in  his  "Letters  on  Literature");  Mr, 
Gannett's  "  Studies  in  Longfellow  " ;  and  G.  W.  Curtis  (in  "  Literary  and  Social 
Essays"). 


XI     JOHN    GREENLEAF   WHITTIER 

IN  the  town  of  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  near  the 
Merrimac  River,  not  far  from  Salisbury  Beach,  and  in  a 
house  built  by  his  great-great-grandfather  more  than  two 
centuries  ago,  John  Greenleaf  Whittier  was  born  on 
December  17,  1807.  He  believed  that  his  ancestors  were 
Huguenots  —  and  this  French  Protestant  stock  is  the 
ablest  and  the  sturdiest  of  all  the  many  which  have 
mingled  to  make  the  modern  American.  For  three  gen- 
erations before  him,  the  family  had  been  connected  with 
the  Society  of  Friends ;  and  all  his  life  long  Whittier 

138 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 


139 


retained  not  a  little  of  the  Quaker  simplicity  of  manner 
and  attire. 

The  house  was  surrounded  by  woods,  and  "a  small 
brook,  noisy  enough  as  it  foamed,  rippled,  and  laughed 
down  its  rocky  falls,"  by  the  garden-side.  Then  it  wound 
its  way  to  a  larger  stream,  that,  "  after  doing  its  duty  at 
two  or  three  saw  and  grist  mills  "  (the  clash  of  which 


Whittier's  Birthplace 

would  be  heard  in  still  days  across  the  intervening  wood- 
lands), ran  into  the  great  river  and  was  borne  along  to  the 
great  sea.  Thus  in  early  boyhood  Whittier  had  a  chance 
to  get  friendly  and  familiar  with  brooks  and  woods  and 
rocky  hills  and  all  the  other  details  of  the  New  England 
landscape.  He  began  early  to  do  the  chores  of  the  house- 
hold and  also  to  aid  his  father  in  the  work  of  the  farm. 
He  helped  to  care  for  the  oxen  and  the  other  beasts  of 


OF  THK 

TTTSTTTrT-oc 


140  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

burden,  and  he  came  to  know  the  wilder  animals  which 
also  lived  on  the  farm.  His  chief  companion  was  a  sister, 
who  was  six  years  younger,  and  who  devoted  herself  to 
him  for  half  a  century. 

In  his  boyhood  Whittier  had  scant  instruction,  for  the 
district  school  was  open  only  a  few  weeks  in  winter,  and 
its  teachers  were  rarely  competent.  He  had  but  few 
books,  for  there  were  scarcely  thirty  in  the  house,  mostly 
dry  disquisitions  on  theology.  The  one  book  he  could 
read  and  read  again  until  he  had  it  by  heart  almost  was 
the  Bible ;  and  the  Bible  was  always  the  book  which 
exerted  the  strongest  literary  influence  upon  him. 

But  when  he  was  fourteen  a  teacher  came  who  lent  him 
books  of  travel  and  opened  a  new  world  to  him.  It  was 
this  teacher  who  brought  to  the  Whittiers  one  evening  a 
volume  of  Burns  and  read  aloud  some  of  the  poems,  after 
explaining  the  Scottish  dialect.  Whittier  begged  the  loan 
of  the  book,  which  contained  almost  the  first  rimes  he  had 
ever  read.  It  was  this  volume  of  Burns  which  set  Whittier 
to  making  verses  himself,  serving  both  as  the  motive  and 
the  model  of  his  earlier  poetic  efforts.  The  Scottish  poet, 
with  his  homely  pictures  of  a  life  as  bare  and  as  hardy  as 
that  of  New  England  then,  first  revealed  to  the  American 
poet  what  poetry  really  is,  and  how  it  might  be  made  out 
of  the  actual  facts  of  existence. 

That  book  of  Burns's  poems  had  an  even  stronger  influ- 
ence on  Whittier  than  the  odd  volume  of  the  "Spectator" 
which  fell  into  the  hands  of  Franklin  had  on  that  American 
author  whose  boyhood  was  most  like  Whittier's.  Franklin 
was  also  born  in  a  humble  and  hard-working  family,  doing 
early  his  share  of  the  labor,  and  having  but  a  meager 
education,  although  always  longing  for  learning.  It  is 
true  that  Irving  and  Cooper  and  Bryant  did  not  graduate 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER  141 

from  college,  but  they  could  have  done  so  had  they  per- 
severed ;  and  Emerson  and  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne 
did  get  as  much  of  the  higher  education  as  was  then 
possible  in  America.  But  neither  Franklin  nor  Whittier 
ever  had  the  chance ;  it  was  as  much  as  they  could  do  in 
boyhood  to  pick  up  the  merest  elements  of  an  education. 

After  he  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Burns's  poems, 
Whittier  began  to  scribble  rimes  of  his  own  on  his  slate 
at  school,  and  in  the  evening  about  the  family  hearth. 
One  of  his  boyish  quatrains  lingered  in  the  memory  of  an 
elder  sister  :  — 

And  must  I  always  swing  the  flail, 

And  help  to  fill  the  milking  pail? 

I  wish  to  go  away  to  school ; 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  a  fool. 

With  practice  he  began  to  be  bolder,  and  he  wrote  verses 
on  contemporary  events  and  also  little  ballads.  One  of 
these,  written  when  he  was  seventeen,  his  eldest  sister 
liked  so  well  that  she  sent  it  to  the  weekly  paper  of 
Newburyport,  the  Free  Press  >  recently  started  by  William 
Lloyd  Garrison.  She  did  this  without  telling  her  brother, 
and  no  one  was  more  surprised  than  he  when  he  opened 
the  paper  and  found  his  own  verses  in  the  "  Poet's  Corner." 
He  was  aiding  his  father  to  mend  a  stone  wall  by  the  road- 
side as  the  postman  passed  on  horseback  and  tossed  the 
paper  to  the  young  man.  "  His  heart  stood  still  a  moment 
when  he  saw  his  own  verses.  Such  delight  as  his  comes 
only  once  in  the  lifetime  of  any  aspirant  to  literary  fame. 
His  father  at  last  called  to  him  to  put  up  the  paper  and 
keep  at  work." 

The  editor  of  the  Free  Press  was  only  three  years  older 
than  the  poet,  although  far  more  mature.  He  did  more  for 
the  young  man  than  merely  print  these  boyish  verses,  for 


142  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

he  went  to  Whittier's  father  and  urged  the  need  of  giving 
the  youth  a  little  better  education.  To  do  this  was  not 
possible  then ;  but  two  years  later,  when  Whittier  was 
nineteen,  an  academy  was  started  at  Haverhill,  and  here 
he  attended,  even  writing  a  few  stanzas  to  be  sung  at  the 
opening  exercises. 

He  studied  at  Haverhill  for  two  terms,  earning  the  little 
money  needed  to  pay  his  way  by  making  slippers,  by  keep- 
ing books,  and  by  teaching  school.  At  Haverhill  he  was 
able  to  read  the  works  of  many  authors  hitherto  unknown 
to  him,  and  he  also  wrote  for  the  local  papers  much  prose 
and  verse.  There  was  even  an  attempt  to  get  subscribers 
for  a  collection  of  his  poems,  but  it  failed,  fortunately  ;  and 
the  improving  taste  of  Whittier,  when  he  did  publish  his 
first  volume,  led  him  to  reject  most  of  these  early  verses. 

By  the  time  he  was  twenty-one  he  had  fitted  himself 
to  earn  his  living  by  his  pen.  He  went  to  Boston  in  1829 
to  edit  a  paper  there ;  and  he  returned  to  Haverhill  the 
next  year  to  take  charge  of  the  local  journal.  Then  he 
was  at  the  head  of  an  important  weekly  at  Hartford.  In 
these  various  positions  he  acquitted  himself  well,  master- 
ing the  questions  of  the  day  carefully,  and  expressing  his 
opinions  forcibly  and  courteously.  But  his  health  failed, 
owing  partly  perhaps  to  the  exposure  and  toil  of  his  boy- 
hood on  the  farm  ;  and  in  1832  he  gave  up  journalism  for 
a  while  and  went  back  to  his  father's  house.  He  had 
never  been  robust,  and  all  his  life  long  he  was  forced  to 
take  care  of  himself  and  to  husband  his  strength. 

But  if  the  body  was  weak,  the  spirit  was  strong ;  Whit- 
tier had  the  stout  heart  which  leads  a  forlorn  hope  unhesi- 
tatingly. Before  he  was  thirty  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  do  what  he  could  for  the  relief,  of 
the  unfortunate  negroes  who  were  held  in  bondage  in  the 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER  143 

South.  In  1833  he  wrote  a  pamphlet  called  "Justice  and 
Expediency,"  in  which  he  considered  the  whole  question 
of  slavery,  and  declared  the  necessity  of  its  abolition. 
Three  years  later  he  became  secretary  of  the  Antislavery 
Society.  In  1838  he  went  to  Philadelphia  to  edit  the 
Pennsylvania  Freeman;  and  so  boldly  did  he  advocate 
the  right  of  the  negro  to  own  himself  that  the  printing 
office  was  sacked  by  a  mob  and  burned.  Then,  as  more 
than  once  afterward  for  the  same  cause,  Whittier  was  in 
danger  of  his  life. 

Whittier  showed  physical  courage  in  facing  the  ruffians 
who  wished  to  prevent  free  speech ;  but  he  had  revealed 
the  higher  moral  courage  in  casting  in  his  lot  with  the 
little  band  of  abolitionists.  He  had  looked  forward  to 
political  preferment,  as  well  he  might,  when  many  another 
journalist  was  stepping  from  the  newspaper  desk  into 
public  life.  When  he  became  one  of  the  very  small  mi- 
nority who  denounced  slavery,  he  gave  up  all  chance  of 
office.  He  also  had  literary  ambition,  but  so  strong  was 
the  power  of  the  slave  owners  then,  and  so  intolerant  were 
they,  that  most  editors  and  publishers  were  sorely  intimi- 
dated, and  declined  to  print  any  attack  on  slavery,  and 
even  the  other  writings  of  an  author  who  was  known 
as  an  abolitionist.  Thus  Whittier,  in  identifying  himself 
with  the  antislavery  movement,  thought  that  he  was  giv- 
ing up  his  literary  future  also.  He  made  his  decision 
promptly,  and  he  never  regretted  it.  Indeed,  in  later  life 
he  said  to  a  boy  of  fifteen  to  whom  he  was  giving  counsel, 
"  My  lad,  if  thou  wouldst  win  success,  join  thyself  to  some 
unpopular  but  noble  cause." 

By  constant  practice  he  had  acquired  ease  in  composi- 
tion ;  but  as  his  hand  gained  strength  his  taste  also  im- 
proved, and  little  of  this  earlier  writing  satisfied  him  for 


144  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

long.  A  miscellany  of  prose  and  verse  called  "  Legends 
of  New  England,"  published  in  1831,  was  his  first  book. 
It  contained  a  selection  of  the  best  of  the  poems  and  the 
essays  he  had  printed  here  and  there  in  periodicals.  In 
later  life  he  thought  so  slightly  of  this  volume  that  none 
of  the  essays,  and  only  two  of  the  poems,  were  republished 
in  the  revised  edition  of  his  works.  Immature  as  was  this 
youthful  verse,  scarcely  any  American  had  then  written 
better.  Bryant's  first  volume,  and  Poe's,  had  been  pub- 
lished several  years  before  ;  but  Longfellow's  earliest  book 
of  poems,  "Voices  of  the  Night,"  did  not  appear  until  1839, 
to  be  followed  in  1847  by  the  first  collection  of  Emerson's 
poems. 

Other  poems,  which  Whittier  discarded  in  later  life, 
were  published  in  the  next  few  years.  The  most  vigorous 
of  the  verses  he  wrote  at  this  time  were  inspired  by  his 
hatred  of  slavery.  From  the  day  he  threw  himself  into 
the  abolition  movement,  his  verse  had  a  loftier  note  and  a 
more  resonant  tone.  With  him  poetry  was  then  no  longer 
a  mere  amusement  or  accomplishment ;  it  had  become  a 
weapon  for  use  in  the  good  fight. 

In  these  antislavery  poems  there  is  a  noble  passion  and 
a  righteous  anger.  They  were  calls  to  a  battle  with  evil ; 
and  the  best  of  them  rang  out  like  blasts  of  a  bugle.  One 
collection  of  these  antislavery  verses  was  published  in 
1837,  and  a  second,  called  "Voices  of  Freedom,"  appeared 
in  1849.  When  we  compare  either  of  these  volumes  with 
Longfellow's  "Poems  on  Slavery"  (printed  in  1842,  mid- 
way between  them),  we  see  how  much  sturdier  Whittier's 
stanzas  are,  and  how  much  more  his  heart  is  in  the  cause 
than  Longfellow's.  It  is  Longfellow  who  writes  with 
Quaker-like  gentleness,  and  it  is  Whittier  who  fiercely 
sounds  the  trumpet  of  battle. 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER  145 

In  other  ways  also  is  the  contrast  between  Longfellow 
and  Whittier  interesting  and  instructive.  Both  were  New 
Englanders,  and  both  hated  slavery.  Longfellow  was  the 
most  literary  of  all  our  poets,  and  Whittier  was  perhaps 
the  least.  By  consummate  art  Longfellow  sometimes 
achieved  simplicity,  but  he  never  could  attain  the  homely 
directness  natural  to  Whittier.  Longfellow's  chief  service 
to  our  literature  was  in  showing  how  it  was  possible  to  get 


Whittier's  Residence,  Amesbury,  Mass. 

the  best  that  Europe  and  the  storied  past  could  give,  and 
yet  to  remain  an  American  of  the  present.  Whittier  dealt 
almost  wholly  with  the  facts  of  American  life,  with  the 
legends  and  the  thoughts,  with  the  landscape  and  the 
people  of  New  England.  Where  Longfellow  was  cosmo- 
politan, Whittier  was  less  than  national  even,  he  was 
sectional ;  and  he  was  therefore  too  local  in  his  themes 
and  in  his  manner  to  win  popularity  in  England  as  Long- 

AMER.  LIT.  —  IO 


146  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

fellow  did.  Here  in  the  United  States,  however,  where 
the  influence  of  New  England  is  widespread  and  abiding, 
Whittier  came  at  last  to  have  a  popularity  second  only  to 
Longfellow's,  and  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  he,  more 
than  any  other,  was  the  representative  poet  of  New 
England. 

Whittier  was  the  only  one  of  the  leading  American 
poets  who  never  crossed  the  Atlantic.  Not  only  did  he 
never  go  to  Europe,  he  never  went  south  of  the  Potomac 
or  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  When  the  farm  at  Haverhill 
was  sold  in  1836,  part  of  the  price  was  used  to  buy  a  small 
place  at  Amesbury ;  and  that  house  was  Whittier's  home 
for  more  than  half  a  century.  After  his  return  from  Phila- 
delphia, in  1839,  he  was  rarely  absent  from  Amesbury  for 
more  than  a  month  or  two  at  a  time,  although  he  did  once 
reside  the  better  part  of  a  year  in  Lowell.  He  made  visits 
to  Boston  often  and  sometimes  even  to  New  York ;  and 
frequently  he  spent  his  summers  elsewhere ;  but  until  his 
death  his  home  was  the  little  house  at  Amesbury. 

Though  his  abolition  sentiments  were  boldly  insisted 
mpon  in  most  of  his  writings,  they  did  not  prevent  the 
steady  rise  of  his  poetic  reputation  even  among  those  who 
were  not  of  his  way  of  thinking.  With  the  publication  in 
1843  °f  "  Lays  of  My  Home,"  Whittier  made  sure  his 
place  among  American  poets.  In  this  volume  are  some 
of  the  best  of  his  ballads, — •"  Cassandra  Southwick,"  for 
one  —  and  as  a  writer  of  ballads  Longfellow  only,  among 
all  the  American  poets,  was  Whittier's  superior. 

He  had  the  gift  of  story-telling  in  verse.  He  did  not 
strain  his  invention  to  devise  a  strange  plot ;  he  took  an 
old  legend  or  a  tale  of  real  life,  and  he  set  it  forth  in  rime 
simply  and  easily.  He  had  the  touch  of  genius  which 
transfigures  common  things.  He  sang  of  what  he  knew, 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER  147 

the  fields  where  he  played  as  a  boy,  the  river  and  the  hills 
he  had  gazed  on  in  childhood,  the  men  and  women  who 
had  grown  up  about  him,  the  thoughts  and  the  sentiments 
he  and  they  had  inherited  together.  Even  the  unpromis- 
ing proper  names  of  New  England  become  melodious  in 
his  hands. 

As  the  years  passed,  Whittier's  powers  ripened  and  the 
level  of  his  work  was  raised ;  but  the  quality  of  the  poems 
included  in  "  Songs  of  Labor,"  published  in  1850,  and  in 
"Home  Ballads,"  published  in  1860,  is  the  quality  of  the 
collection  published  in  1843.  Among  the  verse  written 
during  these  seventeen  years  are  the  "Angels  of  Buena 
Vista"  ;  "Maud  Muller"  (perhaps  the  most  popular  of  all 
his  briefer  poems) ,  "  Ichabod  "  (perhaps  the  loftiest  of  all 
laments  over  fallen  greatness)  ;  the  "  Barefoot  Boy "  ; 
"  Skipper  Ireson's  Ride  "  (one  of  his  most  characteristic 
New  England  ballads)  ;  and  the  tribute  to  Robert  Burns. 
The  poet  of  New  England  was  always  swift  to  declare  his 
indebtedness  to  the  poet  of  Scotland  and  to  proclaim  his 
abiding  regard  for  the  poems  which  had  first  shown  him 
what  poetry  was. 

During  these  years  of  the  antislavery  struggle  not  only 
was  Whittier's  reputation  as  a  poet  growing  steadily,  but 
the  people  of  the  North  and  of  the  West  were  as  steadily 
coming  over  to  his  side.  Of  course  we  cannot  exactly 
measure  the  influence  of  a  lyric,  but  it  may  be  almost 
irresistible.  He  was  a  wise  man  who  was  willing  to  let 
others  make  the  laws  of  a  people  if  only  he  could  make 
their  songs.  Law  is  but  the  condensation  of  public 
opinion  ;  and  when  the  ringing  stanzas  of  the  antislavery 
bards  and  the  speeches  of  the  antislavery  orators  had 
awakened  the  conscience  of  the  free  states,  the  end  of  the 
evil  was  nigh.  Slavery  made  a  hard  fight  for  its  life ;  but 


148  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

it  was  slavery  itself  that  Whittier  hated,  and  not  the 
slave  owners ;  and  there  is  no  bitterness  or  rancor  in  the 
poems  published  in  1863  and  called  "  In  War  Time."  Even 
in  his  most  martial  lines  there  is  a  Quaker  suavity ;  and 
of  these  ballads  of  the  battle  years  the  best  known  is 
"  Barbara  Frietchie,"  a  testimony  to  the  old  flag,  not  a 
diatribe  against  those  who  were  then  attacking  it,  and 
founded  on  a  misapprehension  of  the  facts. 

After  the  final  triumph  of  the  cause  for  which  he  had 
battled  long  and  bravely,  Whittier  turned  again  to  peaceful 
themes.  With  the  spread  of  his  opinions  among  the 
people,  his  poetry  had  also  become  more  popular  ;  but  no 
single  book  of  his  had  ever  a  widespread  and  immediate 
success  until  "Snow-Bound"  appeared  in  1866.  This 
poem  of  New  England  was  seen  at  once  to  be  worthy 
of  comparison  with  the  "  Deserted  Village "  and  with 
the  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  with  more  of  the  real 
flavor  of  the  soil  than  Goldsmith's  lines,  and  with  less 
breadth,  but  no  less  elevation,  than  Burns's.  It  was 
received  by  the  reading  public  as  no  other  poem  since 
Longfellow's  "Evangeline"  and  "Hiawatha."  It  was  so 
profitable  that  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  —  and  he  was 
then  nearly  sixty  —  Whittier  was  placed  above  want. 

Only  less  successful  was  the  "Tent  on  the  Beach," 
printed  the  next  year,  and  followed  in  twelve  months  by 
"Among  the  Hills."  Thereafter  his  position  was  secure. 
He  had  taken  his  place  as  one  of  the  poets  of  America, 
beside  Emerson  and  Longfellow,  beside  Lowell  and 
Holmes ;  and  perhaps  he  was  nearer  than  any  of  the 
others  to  the  hearts  of  New  Englanders  and  of  the 
Westerners  whose  fathers  had  gone  out  from  New  Eng- 
land. He  has  been  called  a  Quaker  Burns ;  he  might 
better  be  called  the  Burns  of  New  England ;  and  as  Burns 


149 


150  AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

wrote  for  Scotland  rather  than  for  the  whole  of  Great 
Britain,  so  Whittier  wrote  for  New  England  rather  than 
for  the  whole  of  the  United  States.  It  was  the  scenery 
of  New  England  he  loved  best  to  paint  in  his  ballads ; 
it  was  the  sentiments  of  New  England  he  voiced  in  his 
lyrics  ;  it  was  his  steadfast  faith  in  New  England  that 
gave  strength  to  all  he  wrote. 

During  the  later  years  of  his  life  Whittier  wrote  as  the 
mood  came,  and  he  gathered  his  scattered  verses  into 
volumes  from  time  to  time  —  "  Ballads  of  New  England," 
for  example,  in  1870;  "Mabel  Martin,"  in  1874;  the 
"  King's  Missive,"  in  1881.  While  no  one  of  these  collec- 
tions repeated  the  impression  made  by  "Snow-Bound,"  they 
strengthened  his  hold  on  the  hearts  of  the  people.  No 
doubt  his  old  age  was  made  happier  by  the  honor  in  which 
he  was  held.  Though  his  health  was  not  good,  he  came 
of  sturdy  stock,  and  he  outlived  the  most  of  his  fellow- 
poets  of  New  England.  He  saw  Longfellow  go  first,  and 
then  Emerson,  and  finally  Lowell,  his  comrade  in  the  anti- 
slavery  struggle.  Long  past  the  allotted  three-score  years 
and  ten,  he  printed  a  final  volume  of  his  poems  in  1892, 
under  the  significant  title  "  At  Sundown."  At  last,  early  in 
the  fall  of  1892,  he  had  a  slight  paralytic  shock,  and  he  died 
at  dawn  on  September  7,  being  then  in  his  eighty-fifth  year. 

It  is  as  a  poet  that  Whittier  is  held  most  in  honor,  but 
he  was  also  a  writer  of  prose ;  and  in  the  final  collected 
edition  of  his  works  published  four  years  before  his  death 
his  prose  writings  fill  three  of  the  seven  volumes.  Of 
these  prose  writings  the  most  important  is  an  attempt  to 
reconstruct  (in  the  form  of  a  diary)  the  life  of  the  first 
settlers ;  it  is  called  "  Margaret  Smith's  Journal  in  the 
Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  1678-79,"  and  it  was  first 
published  in  1849.  As  the  poet  himself  said,  "Its  merit 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER  151 

consists  mainly  in  the  fact  that  it  presents  a  tolerably  life- 
like picture  of  the  past,  and  introduces  us  familiarly  to  the 
hearts  and  homes  of  New  England  in  the  seventeenth 
century."  The  poet  also  preserved  in  these  three  volumes 
what  seemed  to  him  best  worth  keeping  of  all  his  earlier 
tales  and  sketches  and  of  his  later  literary  criticisms  and 
personal  tributes. 

He  revised  at  the  same  time  the  more  important  of  his 
antislavery  tracts  and  articles.  As  slavery  has  been  abol- 
ished forever  in  this  country,  the  interest  of  these  polemic 
writings  is  now  mainly  historical ;  they  show  us  how  the 
men  felt  and  thought  who  were  in  the  thick  of  the  fight 
for  freedom.  It  is  the  hard  fate  of  nearly  all  writing 
done  to  aid  a  cause  that  it  is  killed  by  its  own  success. 
Just  as  soon  as  the  result  is  attained  the  articles  which 
helped  to  bring  about  the  result  cease  to  reward  reading. 
From  this  hard  fate  much  of  Whittier's  antislavery  and 
war  poetry  is  saved  by  its  own  intrinsic  beauty  —  a  beauty 
lacking  in  his  prose,  however.  The  same  neglect  has  also 
befallen  not  a  little  of  the  vigorous  writing  of  Benjamin 
Franklin. 

Unlike  as  Whittier  and  Franklin  were  in  many  respects, 
they  were  alike  in  others.  Both  of  them  had  the  sym- 
pathy with  the  lowly  which  comes  of  early  experience. 
Both  learned  a  handicraft,  for  as  a  boy  Franklin  set  type 
and  worked  a  printing  press,  and  Whittier  had  learnt  the 
trade  of  slipper-making.  To  both  of  them  literature  was 
a  means,  rather  than  an  end  in  itself.  Verse  to  Whit- 
tier, and  prose  to  Franklin,  was  a  weapon  to  be  used  in 
the  good  fight.  In  Whittier's  verse,  as  in  Franklin's 
prose,  there  was  the  same  pithy  directness  which  made 
their  words  go  home  to  the  hearts  of  the  plain  people 
whom  they  both  understood  and  represented. 


152  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

In  the  fortunate  absence  of  any  class  distinctions  in 
this  country,  both  Franklin  and  Whittier  were  able  to 
develop  at  will,  expanding  freely  as  occasion  served,  and 
educating  themselves  into  harmony  with  broader  oppor- 
tunities. To  Franklin  was  given  the  larger  life  and  the 
greater  range  of  usefulness  ;  but  Whittier  always  did  with 
all  his  might  the  duty  that  lay  before  him. 

While  Whittier  was  practical,  as  becomes  a  New  Eng- 
lander,  he  had  not  the  excessive  common  sense  which 
characterizes  Franklin,  and  he  lacked  also  Franklin's 
abundant  humor.  So  also  his  morality  was  of  finer  fiber 
than  Franklin's.  He  was  not  content,  as  Franklin  was, 
with  showing  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy,  and  that  in 
the  long  run  vice  does  not  pay ;  he  scourged  evil  with 
the  wrath  of  a  Hebrew  prophet.  His  views  of  life  were 
Hebraic  rather  than  Hellenic,  for  he  sought  duty,  as  the 
Jews  did,  rather  than  beauty,  as  did  the  Greeks.  No  one 
of  his  poems  was  written  for  its  own  sake,  with  the  excep- 
tion only  of  a  few  of  his  ballads.  They  were  nearly  all 
intended  to  further  a  cause  he  held  dear,  or  to  teach  a  les- 
son he  thought  needful. 

For  the  most  part  his  art  was  unconscious ;  he  sang 
because  he  was  a  born  poet.  He  was  not  an  artist  in 
verse  as  Longfellow  was ;  and  he  was  often  as  careless  in 
rime  and  as  rugged  in  rhythm  as  was  Emerson.  Yet  to 
some  of  his  stanzas  there  is  a  lyric  lilt  that  sings  itself 
into  the  memory ;  and  the  best  of  his  ballads  have  an  easy 
grace  of  movement.  He  knew  his  own  deficiencies  of 
training,  and  he  was  quick  to  take  advice  from  those  whom 
he  thought  better  equipped  than  himself.  In  this  as  in  all 
things  else  he  was  modest.  How  modest  he  really  was  is 
perhaps  best  shown  in  certain  quatrains  of  the  poem  he 
called  "  My  Triumph  "  :  — 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER  153 

O  living  friends  who  love  me  ! 

0  dear  ones  gone  above  me  ! 
Careless  of  other  fame, 

1  leave  to  you  my  name. 

Hide  it  from  idle  praises, 

Save  it  from  evil  phrases  ; 

Why,  when  dear  lips  that  spake  it 

Are  dumb,  should  strangers  wake  it  ? 

Let  the  thick  curtain  fall ; 
I  better  know  than  all 
How  little  I  have  gained, 
How  vast  the  unattained. 

Sweeter  than  any  sung 

My  songs  that  found  no  tongue ; 

Nobler  than  any  fact 

My  wish  that  failed  of  act. 

Others  shall  sing  the  song, 
Others  shall  right  the  wrong  — 
Finish  what  I  begin  — 
And  all  I  fail  of  win. 


QUESTIONS.  —  How  in  his  boyhood  did  Whittier  learn  to  love 
Nature? 

With  what  kinds  of  books  did  he  first  become  acquainted? 

Compare  his  educational  advantages  with  those  of  other  American 
men  of  letters. 

Tell  how  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  leading  antislavery  agi- 
tator of  his  day,  and  in  what  way  the  connection  was  beneficial  to  him. 

What  efforts  and  sacrifices  did  Whittier  make  in  order  to  be  of  ser- 
vice to  the  cause  to  which  he  devoted  himself  ? 

Trace  the  growth  of  Whittier's  literary  skill  during  the  twenty  years 
of  this  period  in  his  life. 

Contrast  the  representative  New  England  poet  with  the  representa- 
tive American  poet. 

Characterize  the  work  in  three  collections  of  Whittier's  poems  pub- 
lished between  1843  and  1860. 


154  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Discuss  Whittier's  service  in  the  cause  which  his  book  "In  War 
Time  "  was  designed  to  further. 

Compare  with  the  most  famous  works  of  Burns  and  Goldsmith  the 
poem  by  which  Whittier  won  a  degree  of  literary  and  financial  success 
surpassing  anything  which  he  had  known  hitherto. 

What  is  the  general  character  of  Whittier's  later  poems  ? 

What  can  you  say  of  Whittier's  reputation  as  a  writer  in  prose? 

Compare  Whittier  and  Franklin. 

Make  an  estimate  of  Whittier's  art. 


NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Whittier's  works  is  that  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  (7  vols.,  $10.50).  The  Cambridge  edition  contains  all 
the  poems  in  a  single  volume  ($2).  "Snow-Bound,"  "Mabel  Martin,"  etc.,  the 
"  Tent  on  the  Beach,"  etc.,  can  be  had  as  separate  numbers  of  the  Riverside  Litera- 
ture series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  15  cents). 

The  authoritative  biography  is  that  of  Mr.  S.  T.  Pickard  (Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  2  vols.,  $3). 

For  criticism,  see  Lowell's  "Fable  for  Critics";  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  (in  his 
"  American  Poets  ")  ;  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "  American  Litera- 
ture ")  ;  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell  (in  his  "  Stelligeri  ")  ;  Mrs.  Fields  (in  a  volume  of 
Harper's  Black  and  White  series)  ;  and  Prof.  George  E.  Woodberry  (in  Atlantic 
Afon!,'i!y,  November,  1892). 


XII     EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

WITH  scarcely  an  exception  the  chief  authors  of  America 
have  lived  out  their  allotted  threescore  years  and  ten  ; 
and  their  long  lives  have  been  happy  ;  and  at  last  they 
have  died  surrounded  by  friends  and  held  in  high  honor 
by  their  fellow-countrymen.  Franklin  and  Irving,  Bryant 
and  Emerson,  Longfellow  and  Lowell,  Holmes  and  Whit- 
tier,  all  survived  to  a  ripe  old  age.  James  Fenimore 
Cooper,  although  often  harassed  by  petty  squabbles  due  to 
his  own  touchiness  of  temper,  was  completely  happy  at  his 
own  fireside ;  and  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  although  so  much 

"55 


156  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

of  a  recluse  by  nature  as  to  seem  to  some  almost  a  mis- 
anthrope, was  quite  as  fortunate  in  his  home  life  as  Cooper 
was. 

The  single  exception  to  this  remarkable  record  of  pros- 
perous and  honorable  longevity  is  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who 
died  young  and  alone  and  poor  and  in  ill  repute.  And  yet 
in  the  eyes  of  foreigners  he  is  the  most  gifted  of  all  the 
authors  of  America ;  he  is  the  one  to  whom  the  critics  of 
Europe  would  most  readily  accord  the  full  title  of  genius. 
At  the  end  of  this  nineteenth  century  Poe  is  the  sole  man 
of  letters  born  in  the  United  States  whose  writings  are 
read  eagerly  in  Great  Britain  and  in  France,  in  Germany, 
in  Italy,  and  in  Spain,  where  Franklin  is  now  but  a  name 
and  where  the  fame  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  once  as 
widely  spread,  is  now  slowly  fading  away. 

And  in  yet  another  respect  is  Poe  unlike  the  other 
American  authors  of  this  century ;  they  may  be  divided 
into  two  geographical  groups  —  Irving,  Cooper,  and  Bry- 
ant in  New  York ;  and  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Hawthorne, 
Whittier,  Holmes,  and  Lowell  in  New  England.  Poe  was 
neither  a  New  Yorker  nor  a  New  Englander ;  he  was  a 
Southerner  both  by  temperament  and  by  descent. 

That  he  chanced  to  be  born  in  Boston  —  on  January 
19,  1809  —  was  an  accident  due  to  the  fact  that  his 
parents  happened  to  be  attached  to  a  theatrical  company 
then  performing  there.  His  father  was  a  son  of  David 
Poe,  a  revolutionary  patriot  of  Baltimore.  His  mother 
was  an  actress  of  much  skill  and  of  high  character.  After 
the  death  of  his  father  his  mother  joined  the  company  in 
Richmond;  and  there  she  died  also,  before  Edgar  was 
three  years  old. 

He  was  a  beautiful  and  precocious  child ;  and  the  wife 
of  a  Richmond  merchant  named  Allan  received  him  into 


EDGAR  ALLAN   POE  157 

the  family.  The  boy  was  thereafter  called  Edgar  Allan 
Poe.  His  parents  had  been  very  poor ;  and  he  was  now 
on  the  footing  of  an  adopted  son  in  the  household  of  a 
wealthy  and  liberal  man.  He  was  sent  to  school,  and  at 
the  age  of  six  he  could  read  and  draw  and  dance.  "  It  is 
related  also,"  says  a  biographer,  "that  Mr.  Allan  taught 
the  boy  to  stand  up  in  a  chair  at  dessert  and  pledge  the 
health  of  the  company,  which  he  did  with  roguish  grace," 
and  which  may  have  implanted  in  him  then  the  seeds  of 
a  fatal  desire  for  strong  drink. 

In  1815  the  Allans  went  to  England  and  Edgar  was  put 
to  school  in  the  outskirts  of  London,  where  he  took  part 
in  outdoor  sports  and  studied  Latin  and  French.  Five 
years  later,  when  the  boy  was  eleven,  the  family  returned 
to  Richmond  and  he  was  again  sent  to  a  good  school. 
He  began  to  write  verses ;  he  led  in  the  school  debates 
and  in  the  school  athletics ;  but  he  made  no  intimate 
friends.  Even  as  a  boy  he  seems  to  have  been  self-willed, 
"proud  of  his  powers  and  fond  of  their  successful  display." 
One  of  his  schoolboy  feats  at  the  age  of  sixteen  was  to 
swim  from  Richmond  to  Warwick,  a  distance  of  five  or 
six  miles.  After  he  left  school  he  studied  for  a  while 
under  excellent  tutors ;  and  then  at  the  age  of  seventeen 
he  matriculated  at  the  University  of  Virginia,  where  he  re- 
mained a  little  longer  than  a  year. 

His  scholarship  was  praised  while  he  was  there,  and  he 
was  on  good  terms  with  the  authorities.  But  his  character 
was  declaring  itself ;  he  was  sometimes  solitary  and  re- 
served ;  and  sometimes  he  drank  to  excess  and  played 
cards  beyond  his  means.  At  the  close  of  the  session  Mr. 
Allan  refused  to  pay  these  gambling  debts  and  took  Poe 
away  from  the  university,  giving  him  a  desk  in  the  count- 
ing room  at  Richmond.  Perhaps  Poe  felt  himself  unfitted 


158  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

for  business,  and  perhaps  its  restraints  were  irksome.     At 
all  events  he  soon  broke  away  finally. 

In  May,  1827  —  being  again  in  Boston — he  enlisted 
in  the  United  States  Army,  under  the  name  of  Edgar  A. 
Perry,  giving  his  age  as  twenty-two  (when  he  was  really 
only  eighteen).  He  served  in  the  artillery  for  nearly  two 
years,  first  in  the  harbor  of  Boston,  then  at  Fort  Moukrie 
near  Charleston,  and  finally  at  Fortress  Monroe.  He 
seems  to  have  discharged  his  duties  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  officers,  and  he  was  even  promoted  to  be  Sergeant 
Major.  After  the  death  of  Mrs.  Allan,  he  was  reconciled 
with  her  husband,  who  procured  Edgar's  honorable  dis- 
charge from  the  army  and  afterwards  got  him  an  appoint- 
ment as  a  cadet  at  West  Point. 

He  entered  the  Military  Academy  in  July,  1830,  being 
then  twenty-one  but  declaring  himself  to  be  only  nineteen. 
He  was  shy  and  reserved  with  his  fellow-cadets.  His 
French  was  fluent  and  he  had  an  aptitude  for  mathematics, 
so  that  the  hard  work  of  the  education  the  government 
gives  its  officers  was  easy  for  him.  But  he  showed  a 
gross  contempt  for  his  military  duties ;  and  probably  the 
service  was  not  alluring  to  him. 

Shortly  after  he  entered  West  Point  Mr.  Allan  married 
again ;  and  Poe  knew  that  he  could  no  longer  hope  to 
inherit  any  portion  of  that  gentleman's  fortune.  Having 
the  ample  confidence  of  youthful  ability,  he  resolved  to 
face  the  world  for  himself.  By  absence  from  roll  call  and 
guard  duty  and  by  disobedience  to  the  orders  of  the  officer 
of  the  day,  he  made  certain  his  dismissal  after  trial  by  court- 
martial.  And  in  March,  1831,  being  then  twenty-two  years 
old,  he  left  West  Point  to  begin  the  battle  of  life  alone. 

He  had  arranged  with  his  fellow-cadets  to  subscribe  for 
a  volume  of  his  poetry.  Already  in  Boston  in  1827  he 


EDGAR  ALLAN  FOE  159 

had  published  a  thin  little  book  containing  "Tamerlane 
and  Other  Poems,"  not  more  immature  than  juvenile  verses 
usually  are.  Two  years  later  in  Baltimore  he  had  pub- 
lished what  was  really  an  enlargement  of  this  first  venture, 
"  Al  Aaraaf,  Tamerlane,  and  Minor  Poems."  The  collec- 
tion published  in  New  York  in  1831  contained  revised  ver- 
sions of  these  earlier  metrical  essays,  with  the  addition  of 
his  later  verses  ;  it  was  called  simply  "  Poems  "  and  it  was 
dedicated  to  the  cadets  of  the  Military  Academy.  Al- 
though Poe  probably  made  a  little  money  by  the  subscrip- 
tions to  this  book,  it  failed  to  make  any  deep  impression 
on  the  public. 

The  next  four  years  were  for  Poe  a  period  of  hard  strug- 
gle and  bitter  poverty.  He  began  to  write  short  stories  ; 
and  one  of  these,  a  tale  of  striking  vigor  and  novelty,  the 
"  MS.  found  in  a  Bottle,"  won  him  a  hundred-dollar  prize 
offered  by  a  newspaper  for  the  best  brief  fiction  sent  to  it. 
But  he  could  not  find  a  publisher  willing  to  issue  the  vol- 
ume of  tales  of  which  this  was  one.  There  were  times 
when  he  was  in  want  of  the  absolute  necessities  of  life  — 
when  he  was  insufficiently  clothed  and  when  he  lacked 
food  itself.  But  he  had  friends  who  encouraged  him  and 
helped  him  in  many  ways. 

At  last,  in  1835,  one  of  these  friends  got  him  the  post  of 
assistant  editor  of  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  a  new 
monthly  review  just  started  in  Richmond.  For  a  position 
of  this  character  he  immediately  showed  himself  to  be  re- 
markably well  fitted ;  and  under  his  control  the  Messenger 
promptly  became  the  leading  literary  periodical  of  the 
South.  Poe  printed  in  it  his  own  poems  and  short  stories, 
and  thus  began  to  make  himself  known  as  an  imaginative 
writer  of  strange  originality  and  power.  As  a  critic  also 
he  revealed  unexpected  strength ;  he  had  fixed  principles 


160  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

of  literary  art  and  he  applied  these  principles  fairly  and 
fearlessly  to  the  writings  of  the  time.  Indeed,  in  this 
earlier  part  of  Poe's  career  as  an  author  he  was  known 
rather  as  a  critic  than  as  a  poet  or  as  a  romancer. 

Having  an  assured  income  from  the  Southern  Literary 
Messenger  sufficient  for  his  support,  he  married  his  cousin, 
Virginia  Clemm.  This  was  in  May,  1836,  and  he  was  then 
twenty-seven  years  old  ;  the  bride  was  barely  fourteen. 
He  made  a  tender  and  a  devoted  husband.  The  future  now 
seemed  bright  before  him  :  he  had  a  loving  wife  and  loyal 
friends  ;  he  had  a  comfortable  home  and  congenial  work ; 
he  was  rapidly  making  himself  known  as  an  author  from 
whom  much  might  be  expected.  Then  suddenly  he  let  his 
fortune  slip  through  his  hands ;  he  yielded  again  to  the 
temptation  of  drink ;  and  a  few  months  after  his  marriage 
he  lost  his  place  on  the  Messenger. 

The  record  of  the  thirteen  remaining  years  of  Poe's  life 
is  one  long  sequence  of  similar  opportunities  wasted  in  like 
manner.  He  had  many  friends  always  willing  to  help  him 
along ;  and  his  ability  as  an  editor  was  indisputable.  But 
whatever  the  position  he  undertook  to  fill,  and  however 
firmly  he  might  set  about  his  duties,  the  fatal  weakness  al- 
ways reappeared  sooner  or  later.  As  the  years  passed  over 
him,  the  temptation  became  more  and  more  difficult  to 
resist.  When  he  was  sober  he  was  hard  working,  faithful 
to  his  duties,  and  courteous  to  all.  But  toward  the  end 
of  his  life  the  periods  of  sobriety  were  briefer,  as  his  will 
was  enfeebled  by  constant  yielding. 

After  leaving  Richmond  Poe  published,  in  1838,  the 
"Narrative  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,"  a  fictitious  story  of 
Antarctic  adventure,  made  real  by  the  constant  descrip- 
tion of  unimportant  detail,  somewhat  in  the  manner  of 
"Robinson  Crusoe." 


EDGAR   ALLAN   POE  l6l 

In  1840  he  succeeded  in  finding  a  publisher  for  the 
"Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and  the  Arabesque,"  the  most 
original  collection  of  short  stories  written  by  any  American 
author,  with  the  sole  exception  of  the  volume  of  "  Twice- 
Told  Tales  "  which  Hawthorne  had  sent  forth  from  his 
obscurity  three  years  before.  It  is  to  be  recorded  that 
Poe  was  one  of  the  first  to  recognize  the  genius  of  Haw- 
thorne. The  story-teller  of  the  South  swiftly  discovered 
in  the  romancer  of  the  North  certain  of  the  rare  qualities 
which  he  knew  himself  to  possess  and  which  he  ardently 
admired  —  invention,  and  imagination,  and  a  mastery  of 
the  weird  and  the  mysterious. 

While  there  was  in  the  "  Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and  the 
Arabesque  "  a  certain  Southern  affluence  and  luxuriance, 
and  in  the  "Twice-Told  Tales"  a  certain  Northern  severity 
and  restraint,  both  authors  showed  in  these  books  that  they 
had  not  only  the  native  gift  of  story-telling  but  also  that 
they  had  acquired  the  art  of  narrative.  Any  tale  of  theirs, 
twice-told,  or  grotesque  and  arabesque,  had  always  unity 
of  conception,  adroit  perspective,  and  just  proportion. 

Perhaps  the  knowledge  that  Hawthorne  had  had  a  post 
in  the  Boston  customhouse  suggested  to  Poe  that  he 
should  also  try  to  secure  a  place  in  the  government  ser- 
vice. This  was  during  his  six  years'  residence  in  Phila- 
delphia after  he  left  Richmond.  He  failed  to  get  the 
appointment  he  sought.  But  fortune  favored  him  again 
and  again,  and  he  had  other  places.  He  acted  as  editor 
of  one  magazine  after  another,  always  increasing  its  cir- 
culation by  his  skill  and  his  activity,  and  always  losing  his 
position  at  last  either  because  he  quarreled  with  the  pro- 
prietor or  because  he  lapsed  again  into  his  old  habits  and 
then  neglected  his  duties.  The  fidelity  with  which  Poe 
did  his  allotted  work  and  the  courtesy  he  showed  toward 

AMER.  LIT.  —  II 


162 


S       tJf^J 

ZJ**  !4  r'^4 


163 


164  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

his  employers  during  the  periods  when  he  retained  his 
self-control  were  in  marked  contrast  with  his  character- 
istics when  he  had  yielded  to  temptation,  for  then  he  was 
neglectful,  touchy,  and  suspicious. 

As  a  writer  his  reputation  steadily  rose  during  his  stay 
in  Philadelphia.  In  1841  he  published  in  a  magazine  the 
first  detective  story  ever  written,  the  "  Murders  in  the 
Rue  Morgue";  and  two  years  later  he  won  another  hun- 
dred-dollar prize  with  a  second  tale  of  the  same  type,  the 
"  Gold  Bug."  Two  other  stories  of  hidden  secrets  skillfully 
unraveled  are  his  "  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget  "  and  the  "  Pur- 
loined Letter."  Just  as  Washington  Irving  had  written 
the  first  American  local  short  story  in  "  Rip  Van  Winkle," 
and  just  as  James  Fenimore  Cooper  had  written  the  first 
sea  tale  in  the  "  Pilot,"  so  Poe  in  like  manner  invented 
the  detective  story.  He  has  had  numberless  imitators  in 
this  department  of  fiction  ;  he  has  had  no  real  rivals.  In 
ingenuity,  in  variety,  in  plausibility,  in  sustained  interest 
and  in  vigorous  logic,  the  "  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  " 
and  the  "Gold  Bug"  are  unsurpassable  masterpieces. 

After  a  stay  of  six  years  in  Philadelphia  Poe  moved  in 
1844  to  New  York,  where  his  residence  was  for  the  few 
remaining  years  of  his  life.  He  had  long  cherished  the 
hope  of  starting  a  monthly  magazine  of  his  own,  but  the 
project  never  came  to  anything,  although  it  always  re- 
mained the  center  of  Poe's  aspirations.  He  found  editorial 
positions  first  on  one  and  then  on  another  literary  journal 
in  New  York,  breaking  off  his  connection  with  them 
suddenly  as  was  his  custom. 

His  criticisms  of  his  contemporaries  were  now  far 
sharper  than  they  had  been  when  he  first  wrote ;  and  they 
were  less  honest.  As  a  critic  Poe's  influence  had  hitherto 
been  excellent  in  the  main,  for  he  had  a  better  equipment 


EDGAR   ALLAN   POE  165 

and  a  keener  insight  than  any  other  newspaper  reviewer  of 
the  time ;  and  he  had  lofty  ideals  of  literary  art.  But  as 
he  grew  older  his  opinions  seem  to  have  narrowed.  He 
had  no  reverence  for  Homer  or  Shakspere  or  Milton  ;  he 
regarded  Keats  and  Shelley  and  Coleridge  "and  a  few 
others  of  like  expression  ...  as  the  sole  poets." 

Having  these  one-sided  views,  he  was  often  violent  and 
intolerant  in  setting  them  forth.  And  he  allowed  his  liking 
for  the  person  of  an  author  to  influence  his  published  opin- 
ion of  that  author's  works.  He  praised  his  friends  unduly; 
and  he  was  bitter  in  his  attack  on  those  whom  he  held  to 
be  his  enemies.  Even  the  gentle  Longfellow  was  unfairly 
held  up  to  scorn  as  a  poet  who  pilfered  from  many  pred- 
ecessors. One  writer  whose  works  he  criticised  sharply, 
retorted  with  an  attack  so  personal  that  Poe  brought  suit 
for  libel  and  recovered  damages. 

Yet  at  this  time  Poe's  own  reputation  as  a  poet  had  just 
been  established  firmly  by  the  publication  of  the  "Raven" 
—  perhaps  the  most  widely  known  poem  written  by  any 
American  to  this  day.  It  appeared  in  a  magazine  early 
in  1845  and  was  instantly  copied  into  the  leading  news- 
papers of  the  United  States.  It  achieved  an  immediate 
popularity,  which  continues  undiminished  to  the  present 
time.  Its  reception  was  so  cordial  that  toward  the  close 
of  the  year  Poe  gathered  up  his  other  verses,  revising 
them  scrupulously  as  was  his  wont,  and  sent  forth  a  vol- 
ume called  the  "Raven  and  Other  Poems."  Hitherto 
Poe  had  been  known  to  the  public  as  a  critic  chiefly, 
and  also  as  a  writer  of  short  stories ;  thereafter  he  was 
accepted  as  a  poet. 

In  the  preface  to  this  collection  of  his  verses,  Poe 
declared  that  poetry  had  been  to  him  "  not  a  purpose,  but  a 
passion."  By  long  study  he  had  made  himself  a  master  of 


166  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

the  technic  of  verse,  and  he  combined  with  extraordinary 
skill  all  the  effects  to  be  derived  from  lilting  rhythm,  intri- 
cate rime,  artful  repetition,  and  an  aptly  chosen  refrain. 
He  bent  words  to  his  bidding,  and  he  made  his  verse  so 
melodious  that  it  had  almost  the  charm  of  music. 

That  his  scheme  of  poetry  was  highly  artificial,  that  the 
themes  of  his  poems  were  vague  and  insubstantial,  and  that 
his  stanzas  do  not  stimulate  thought  —  these  things  may 
be  admitted  without  disadvantage.  What  the  reader  does 
find  in  Poe's  poetry  is  the  suggestion  of  departed  but 
imperishable  beauty,  and  the  lingering  grace  and  fascina- 
tion of  haunting  melancholy.  His  verses  throb  with  an 
inexpressible  magic  and  glow  with  intangible  fantasy. 
His  poems  have  no  other  purpose  ;  they  convey  no  moral ; 
they  echo  no  call  to  duty ;  they  celebrate  beauty  only  - 
beauty  immaterial  and  evanescent ;  they  are  their  own 
excuse  for  being. 

In  1846  he  moved  to  a  tiny  little  cottage  at  Fordham 
in  the  outskirts  of  New  York.  His  wife  was  dying,  and 
they  were  in  bitter  want.  He  lacked  even  bedclothes  to 
wrap  up  the  enfeebled  woman  he  loved,  and  she  lay  in  bed 
covered  with  his  overcoat.  Toward  the  end  of  the  year  a 
public  appeal  was  made  in  the  newspapers,  stating  that  the 
family  of  the  poet  needed  immediate  help  ;  and  as  a  result, 
their  necessities  were  promptly  relieved.  Poe's  "  natural 
pride  impelled  him  to  shrink  from  public  charity  even  at 
the  cost  of  truth  in  denying  those  necessities  which  were 
but  too  real."  His  wife  sank  lower  and  lower  day  by  day, 
and  early  in  1847  she  died.  Poe  himself  was  also  ill;  and 
again  a  subscription  on  his  behalf  was  taken  up  in  New 
York. 

For  a  while  he  lived  in  retirement,  slowly  regaining  his 
strength.  It  was  about  this  time  that  he  wrote  the  "  Bells," 


EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 


I67 


one  of  the  most  sonorously  melodious  of  his  poems,  second 
in  popularity  only  to  the  "Raven."  He  also  elaborated 
a  pseudo-scientific  rhapsody,  which  he  called  "Eureka." 
Before  publishing  this  he  delivered  part  of  it  as  a  lecture. 
He  had  appeared  on  the  lecture  platform  more  than  once 
already  in  Philadelphia  and  in  Boston.  He  was  a  pic- 
turesque and  striking  speaker ;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see 


Poe's  Cottage,  Fordham.  N.Y. 

why  he  did  not  earlier  turn  his  attention  to  lecturing  as  a 
means  of  pushing  his  fortunes. 

Even  before  the  death  of  his  wife  he  seems  to  have 
allowed  himself  to  be  flattered  by  foolish  women,  whose 
now  forgotten  verses  he  belauded  extravagantly.  To  one 
or  another  of  these  he  went  for  sympathy,  although  appar- 


1 68  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

ently  unable  to  decide  definitely  which  of  them  he  pre- 
ferred. He  was  even  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  lady  in 
Providence,  who  had  to  break  off  the  match  because  he  did 
not  keep  his  word  to  her  to  give  up  drink.  Then  he  pro- 
posed to  a  lady  in  Richmond  and,  so  it  seems,  was  accepted. 

Toward  the  end  of  September,  two  years  after  his  wife's 
death,  he  left  Richmond  to  arrange  for  his  final  removal 
from  New  York.  Four  or  five  days  later  he  was  found  in 
Baltimore  in  the  last  stages  of  delirium.  He  was  admitted 
to  a  hospital,  and  there,  on  Sunday,  October  9,  1849,  ne 
died.  His  relatives  took  charge  of  his  funeral  and  he  was 
buried  the  next  day. 

Thus  came  to  an  untimely  end  the  unfortunate  genius 
who  was  born  in  the  same  year  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 
and  who  died  miserably  forty  years  and  more  before  the 
close  of  Holmes's  dignified  and  honorable  career.  He 
had  great  gifts,  perhaps  greater  than  those  of  any  other 
American  poet,  but  he  knew  not  how  to  husband  them. 
He  had  many  chances,  but  he  threw  them  away,  one  by 
one.  Fortune  favored  him  again  and  again,  but  he  made 
shipwreck  of  his  fate.  He  won  many  friends  to  no  pur- 
pose, for  their  unwearied  efforts  were  unavailing  to  save 
him  from  the  consequences  of  his  own  weakness  of  will. 
His  misfortunes  were  due  to  his  own  failings  ;  and  if  he 
was  unhappy,  it  was  entirely  his  own  fault.  He  was,  as 
Lowell  said  in  Poe's  lifetime,  "  wholly  lacking  in  that  ele- 
ment of  manhood  which  for  want  of  a  better  name  we 
call  character ;  it  is  something  quite  distinct  from  genius 
—  though  all  great  geniuses  are  endowed  with  it." 


QUESTIONS.  —  Enlarge  upon  two  respects  in  which  Poe  is  strikingly 
unlike  the  other  great  American  writers  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Trace  his  career  to  his  expulsion  from  West  Point. 


EDGAR   ALLAN   POE  169 

Compare  Poe's  literary  ability,  as  it  was  revealed  by  his  first  impor- 
tant volume,  with  that  of  Hawthorne,  as  this  was  revealed  in  the  latter's 
corresponding  work. 

Discuss  Poe's  success  in  a  line  of  fiction  in  which  he  was  the 
pioneer. 

What  changes  in  Poe's  disposition  and  manner  began  to  be  evident 
after  his  removal  to  what  was  to  be  his  home  for  the  few  remaining 
years  of  his  life? 

What  characteristics  of  Poe's  genius  at  about  the  same  time  opened 
for  him  a  new  literary  career? 

What  were  the  chief  events  of  the  last  three  years  of  Poe's  life? 

How  does  Lowell's  estimate  of  Poe's  character  agree  with  your  own? 

NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Poe's  works  is  that  of  Mr.  Stedman  and 
Mr.  Woodberry  (Stone  &  Kimball,  Chicago,  10  vols.  at  $1.50).  Single  volume 
editions  of  "  Poems  "  and  of  the  "  Tales  "  are  imperfect  and  not  to  be  recommended. 

The  best  biography  is  Mr.  Woodberry's  in  the  American  Men  of  Letters  series 
(Hough ton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston,  $1.25).  A  condensation  of  this  memoir  is  to  be 
found  in  the  first  volume  of  the  complete  edition. 

The  best  criticism  of  Poe  is  in  Mr.  Woodberry's  biography,  in  Mr.  Stedman's 
"American  Poets,"  and  in  the  introductions  to  the  several  divisions  of  their  com- 
plete edition.  Note  also  the  characterization  of  Poe  in  Lowell's  "  Fable  for 
Critics";  in  Prof.  Richardson's  history  of  "American  Literature";  in  Mr. 
T.  W.  Higginson's  "  Short  Studies  of  American  Authors  " ;  and  in  Mr.  A.  Lang's 
preface  to  his  edition  of  Poe's  poems.  An  essay  on  the  short  story  in  Mr.  Brander 
Matthews's  "Pen  and  Ink"  contains  a  comparison  of  Poe  and  Hawthorne  as 
writers  of  tales. 


XIII     OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES  was  born  in  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  on  August  29,  1809.  During  the  Revolu- 
tion his  grandfather  had  served  as  a  surgeon  with  the 
Continental  troops  ;  and  his  father  was  the  author  of  the 
"Annals  of  America,"  almost  the  first  attempt  at  a  docu- 
mentary history  of  this  country.  He  grew  to  boyhood  in 
Cambridge,  often  playing  under  the  Washington  elm.  He 
was  sent  to  Phillips  Academy,  Andover ;  and  it  was  while 
he  was  a  schoolboy  there  that  he  translated  the  first  book 
of  Vergil's  "^Eneid"  into  heroic  couplets  —  the  meter  used 

170 


OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES  i;i 

by  Pope  in  his  version  of  Homer's  "  Iliad."  Then  he  went 
to  Harvard  College,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1829,  eight 
years  after  Emerson  and  nine  years  before  Lowell.  He 
wrote  prose  and  verse  while  he  was  at  Harvard,  contribut- 
ing freely  to  the  college  paper ;  and  he  delivered  the  poem 
at  commencement. 

Settling  down  in  his  native  town  he  began  to  study  law, 
but  his  heart  was  not  in  his  task,  and  he  sought  relief  in 
writing  verse,  mostly  comic.  That  he  could  be  serious 
upon  occasion  was  shown  swiftly  the  year  after  his  gradu- 
ation, when  it  was  proposed  to  break  up  the  frigate  "Con- 
stitution" —  "Old  Ironsides  "  —  the  victor  in  the  splendid 
fight  with  the  British  ship  "Guerriere"  in  the  war  of  1812. 
With  the  hot  indignation  of  youth  against  what  seemed 
to  him  an  insult  and  an  outrage  upon  a  national  glory, 
Holmes  wrote  the  fiery  lines  beginning  :  — 

Ay,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down, 

Long  has  it  waved  on  high,  - 
And  many  an  eye  has  danced  to  see 

That  banner  in  the  sky ;  ~ 
Beneath  it  rung  the  battle  shout, 

And  burst  the  cannon's  roar ;  -- 
The  meteor  of  the  ocean  air 

Shall  sweep  the  clouds  no  more.  \ 

This  lyric  appeal  to  patriotic  feeling  was  first  published 
in  the  Boston  Advertiser ;  it  was  copied  all  over  the  coun- 
try ;  it  was  quoted  in  speeches ;  it  was  printed  on  hand- 
bills ;  and  it  saved  the  ship  for  half  a  century.  "  Old  Iron- 
sides "  was  taken  to  the  new  Charlestown  navy  yard,  and  a 
few  years  later  she  was  thoroughly  repaired.  Even  when 
the  day  of  wooden  war  ships  was  past  forever,  the  "  Consti- 
tution "  did  not  go  out  of  commission  for  the  last  time  until 
about  fifty  years  after  Holmes  had  penned  his  stirring  lines. 


172  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

Apparently  the  law  did  not  tempt  Holmes  to  persever- 
ance ;  and  before  he  had  been  out  of  college  two  years  he 
abandoned  it  finally,  to  take  up  the  study  of  medicine  — 
his  grandfather's  profession.  Although  he  had  already 
written  much,  and  was  helping  to  edit  a  miscellany,  he 
seems  never  to  have  thought  of  authorship  as  his  calling. 


Holmes's  Birthplace,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Having  made  his  choice  of  a  profession,  Holmes  devoted 
himself  to  it  —  at  first  in  Boston,  and  then  in  Europe; 
making  the  voyage  chiefly  that  he  might  study  medicine 
in  Paris,  where  the  best  instruction  was  to  be  obtained 
at  that  time.  "  I  was  in  Europe,"  he  wrote  half  a  century 
later,  "about  two  years  and  a  half,  from  April,  1833,  to 
October,  1835.  I  sailed  in  the  packet  ship  'Philadelphia' 
from  New  York  to  Portsmouth,  where  we  arrived  after  a 
passage  of  twenty-four  days.  ...  I  then  crossed  the 


OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES  173 

Channel  to  Havre,  from  which  I  went  to  Paris.  In  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1834  I  made  my  principal  visit  to 
England  and  Scotland.  There  were  other  excursions  to 
the  Rhine  and  to  Holland,  to  Switzerland  and  to  Italy. 
...  I  returned  in  the  packet-ship  '  Utica,'  sailing  from 
Havre,  and  reaching  New  York  after  a  passage  of  forty- 
two  days." 

He  received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  in  1836, 
being  then  twenty-seven  years  old  ;  and  in  that  year  he 
also  published  his  first  volume  of  poems.  Nothing  of 
Dr.  Holmes's  has  been  more  popular  than  the  "Last  Leaf" 
contained  in  this  early  collection,  and  none  has  more  richly 
deserved  to  please  by  its  rhythmic  beauty,  and  by  its  ex- 
quisite blending  of  humor  and  pathos,  so  sympathetically 
intertwined  that  we  feel  the  lonely  sadness  of  the  old  man 
even  while  we  are  smiling  at  his  quaintness  so  delicately 
portrayed.  Dr.  Holmes  was  like  Bryant  (who  composed 
" Thanatopsis "  and  the  "Lines  to  a  Waterfowl"  long 
before  he  was  twenty)  in  that  he  early  attained  his  full 
development  as  a  poet.  Although  both  of  them  wrote 
many  verses  in  later  life,  nothing  of  theirs  excelled  these 
poems  of  their  youth.  In  their  maturity  they  did  not  fall 
off,  but  neither  did  they  deepen  or  broaden  ;  and  "  Thana- 
topsis "  on  the  one  side,  and  the  "Last  Leaf"  on  the 
other,  are  as  strong  and  characteristic  as  anything  either 
poet  was  ever  to  write  throughout  all  his  long  life.  What 
Bryant  was,  what  Holmes  was,  in  his  first  volume  of  poems, 
each  was  to  the  end  of  his  career. 

To  neither  of  them  was  literature  a  livelihood.  Bryant 
was  first  a  lawyer  and  then  a  journalist.  Holmes  was  first 
a  practicing .  physician  and  then  a  teacher  of  medicine. 
He  won  three  prizes  for  dissertations  on  medical  themes, 
and  these  essays  were  published  together  in  1838.  In  1839 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

he  was  appointed  professor  of  anatomy  and  physiology  at 
Dartmouth  and  the  next  year  he  married  Miss  Amelia 
Lee  Jackson.  Shortly  afterward  he  resigned  the  professor- 
ship at  Dartmouth  and  resumed  practice  in  Boston.  He 
worked  hard  at  his  profession,  and  he  contributed  freely  to 
its  literature — publishing,  for  example,  in  1842  his  trench- 
ant discussion  of  "  Homeopathy  and  its  Kindred  Delu- 
sions." Then,  in  1847,  he  went  back  to  Harvard,  having 
been  appointed  professor  of  anatomy  and  physiology  —  a 
position  which  he  was  to  hold  with  great  distinction  for 
thirty-five  years. 

The  most  of  the  prose  which  Dr.  Holmes  wrote  at  this 
period  of  his  life  was  upon  medical  topics ;  and  whenever 
he  had  anything  to  say  upon  other  than  professional  sub- 
jects he  generally  said  it  in  verse.  Although  he  was  for  a 
while  a  frequent  lecturer  in  the  lyceums  of  New  England, 
following  in  the  footsteps  of  Emerson,  his  literary  reputa- 
tion until  he  was  nearly  fifty  was  due  almost  wholly  to  his 
poems.  This  reputatic  n  was  highest  in  Massachusetts, 
and  he  was  the  bard  of  Boston  especially,  being  called  upon 
whenever  the  three-hilled  city  needed  a  copy  of  verses  for 
an  occasion  of  public  interest,  a  dinner,  or  a  funeral,  or 
the  visit  of  a  distinguished  foreigner.  He  always  acquitted 
himself  acceptably  and  often  brilliantly ;  and  he  rarely 
refused  to  provide  the  few  lines  of  rime  appropriate  to 
the  event.  As  he  himself  humorously  put'  it  in  one  of  his 
later  occasional  poems  :  — 

Pm  a  florist  in  verse,  and  what  would  people  say 
If  I  came  to  a  banquet  without  my  bouquet  ? 

Then,  when  Holmes  was  forty-eight  years  old,  an  age  at 
which  most  men  have  stiffened  themselves  into  habits,  he 
showed  the  flexibility  of  his  talent  by  writing  one  of  the 


^ 


1/6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

wisest  and  wittiest  prose  books  in  the  English  language. 
The  Atlantic  Monthly  was  established  in  the  fall  of  1857, 
and  Lowell  made  it  a  condition  of  his  acting  as  editor  that 
Dr.  Holmes  should  be  a  contributor.  Therefore  it  was 
that  the  first  number  of  the  new  magazine  contained  the 
opening  pages  of  the  "  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table," 
which  every  reader  followed  with  delight  month  after 
month,  until  at  last  the  book  was  completed  and  published 
by  itself  in  the  fall  of  1858.  Since  then  it  is  rather  as  a 
writer  of  prose  than  as  a  writer  of  verse  that  Dr.  Holmes 
has  been  most  highly  esteemed. 

The  "Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table"  is  a  most  origi- 
nal book ;  but  it  is  not  especially  original  in  form,  for  it 
is  not  very  unlike  the  "Spectator"  of  Addison  and  Steele, 
wherein  a  group  of  characters  is  described,  and  their 
sayings  and  doings  are  duly  recorded.  In  the  American 
book  the  group  of  characters  meets  at  the  early  morning 
meal,  and  one  of  them  —  the  Autocrat  himself  —  does  most 
of  the  talking.  The  other  figures  are  lightly  sketched 
—  some  of  them  are  merely  suggested ;  and  even  at  the 
very  end  there  is  but  the  thinnest  thread  of  a  story. 

The  real  originality  of  Dr.  Holmes's  work  lay  deeper 
than  the  external  form ;  it  lay  in  the  unaffected  sim- 
plicity and  sincerity  of  the  Autocrat's  talk.  He  seemed 
rather  to  be  chatting  with  himself  than  conversing  with 
others  ;  and  no  such  talk  had  yet  fallen  from  any  American 
lips  —  none  so  cheerful  with  humor,  so  laden  with  thought, 
so  mellow  with  knowledge,  so  ripe  with  experience.  The 
reader  was  borne  along  by  the  current  of  it,  unresisting, 
smiling  often,  laughing  sometimes,  and  absorbing  always, 
even  if  unconsciously,  broad  and  high  thoughts  about  life. 

So  ample  a  store  of  humor  —  and  of  good  humor  —  had 
Dr.  Holmes,  so  well  filled  a  reservoir  of  sense  and  of 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

common  sense,  that  he  had  an  abundance  of  material  for 
other  volumes  like  the  "Autocrat."  In  1860  he  published 
the  "  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table,"  and  in  1872  the 
"  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,"  thus  completing  the  tril- 
ogy. Although  these  two  later  volumes  have  not  all  the 
freshness  of  their  predecessor,  they  are  inferior  only  to  it ; 
they  have  the  same  wholesome  spirit,  the  same  sanity,  the 
same  sunny  sagacity.  And  these  are  also  the  qualities 
which  characterize  his  last  volume  of  prose,  "  Over  the 
Teacups,"  issued  in  1890,  when  he  was  eighty-one  years 
old. 

In  all  these  books  there  is  the  precious  flavor  of  actual 
conversation,  the  table  talk  of  a  broad,  liberal,  thoughtful 
man,  full  of  fancy  and  abounding  in  humor  —  a  man  who 
could  chat  with  countless  readers  without  raising  his  voice, 
speaking  softly  and  easily  as  though  he  were  seated  in  his 
own  chimney  corner. 

Various  essays  and  lighter  prose  pieces,  contributed  from 
time  to  time  to  the  magazines,  he  gathered  together  in 
1863  under  the  apt  title  of  "  Soundings  from  the  Atlantic." 
In  more  than  one  of  these  he  discussed  subjects  of  every- 
day life  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  shrewd  and  thoughtful 
physician,  avoiding  technicalities,  and  yet  using  his  techni- 
cal knowledge  to  help  him  explain  clearly  the  problem  he 
had  in  hand. 

In  1883,  when  he  made  a  final  revision  of  all  his  writ- 
ings, the  best  of  the  papers  in  this  book,  with  others 
written  afterward,  he 'brought  out  together  as  "Pages 
from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life."  At  this  time  he  selected 
and  corrected  also  a  volume  of  "Medical  Essays."  Clever 
as  both  these  books  are,  with  a  cleverness  of  their  own, 
and  of  a  kind  no  other  author  possessed,  they  added  but 
little  to  Dr.  Holmes's  reputation.  And  perhaps  it  is  not 

AMER.  LIT. —  12 


1 78  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

unfair  to  say  that  this  reputation,  raised  to  its  highest  by 
the  Breakfast  Table  series,  was  but  little  bettered  either 
by  the  three  novels  or  by  the  two  biographies  he  wrote 
after  the  success  of  the  "  Autocrat "  tempted  him  to  other 
ventures  in  prose. 

The  three  novels  were  "  Elsie  Venner,"  which  was  pub- 
lished in    1861  ;    the    "Guardian   Angel,"  which  followed 


Holmes's  Summer  Residence,  Beverly  Farms,  Mass. 

in  1867;  and  "A  Mortal  Antipathy,"  which  came  last  in 
1885.  All  three  of  these  attempts  at  story-telling  are 
interesting  because  they  are  the  work  of  Dr.  Holmes.  No 
one  of  them  is  a  masterpiece  of  fiction.  He  had  not 
received  the  gift  of  story-telling  in  as  full  a  proportion  as 
many  novelists  without  a  tithe  of  his  ability.  In  his  hands 
the  novel  is  rarely  dramatic  ;  it  is  rather  an  elaboration  of 
the  essay  and  the  character  sketch.  The  teller  of  the  story 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES  179 

is  more  important  than  the  story  itself,  and  his  comments 
are  more  interesting  than  his  characters. 

The  strange  subjects  he  chose  were  suggested  to  him 
by  his  study  of  his  profession  ;  and  the  themes  of  both 
"  Elsie  Venner  "  and  "  A  Mortal  Antipathy  "  are  abnormal. 
Yet  in  writing  fiction,  as  in  writing  verses,  Dr.  Holmes's 
extraordinary  facility  stood  him  in  good  stead.  His  stories, 
whatever  their  deficiencies  in  other  respects,  have  all  the 
shrewdness  and  the  insight  which  always  characterize  his 
handling  of  human  character. 

The  earlier  of  the  two  biographies  was  the  memoir  of 
Motley,  published  in  1878,  within  two  years  after  the  his- 
torian's death.  Dr.  Holmes  was  one  of  Motley's  oldest 
comrades,  and  he  told  the  story  of  his  friend's  life  and 
labors  with  his  accustomed  skill,  although  perhaps  his  tone 
was  a  little  too  apologetic.  In  the  second  biography,  the 
memoir  of  Emerson,  published  in  1884,  he  saw  no  reason 
to  be  on  the  defensive ;  and  this  life  is  therefore  more  sat- 
isfactory than  its  predecessor. 

Dr.  Holmes  had,  of  course,  a  complete  understanding  of 
Emerson's  wit,  and  a  full  appreciation  of  Emerson's  intelli- 
gence, although  he  had  perhaps  not  so  firm  a  grasp  of 
Emerson's  philosophy.  Yet  the  book  is  delightful.  The 
sage  of  Concord  is  presented  with  the  sharpest  clearness ; 
he  is  made  real  to  us  by  abundant  anecdote ;  his  works 
are  analyzed  with  the  utmost  acumen  ;  and  his  career 
and  his  character  are  summed  up  with  absolute  sympathy. 
Both  of  these  biographies  were  scientifically  planned  and 
proportioned,  for  Dr.  Holmes  was  always  the  neatest  of 
workmen. 

In  nothing  was  he  neater  than  in  his  characterization  of 
his  contemporaries,  not  only  in  these  two  memoirs,  but 
more  particularly  in  the  occasional  poems  which  his  sue- 


180  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

cess  as  a  prose  writer  did  not  prevent  him  from  producing. 
Of  Emerson  he  asked  :  — 

Where  in  the  realm  of  thought,  whose  air  is  song, 
Does  he,  the  Buddha  of  the  West,  belong? 
He  seems  a  winged  Franklin,  sweetly  wise, 
Born  to  unlock  the  secrets  of  the  skies. 

Even  happier  is  his  summary  of  Whittier's  character :  — 

So  fervid,  so  simple,  so  loving,  so  pure, 
We  hear  but  one  strain,  and  our  verdict  is  sure ! 
Thee  cannot  elude  us— no  further  we  search  — 
'Tis  holy  George  Herbert  cut  loose  from  his  church. 

And  when  Lowell  went  abroad  as  minister  of  the  United 
States  to  Spain,  Holmes  rimed  this  pertinent  inquiry :  — 

Do  you  know  whom  we  send  you,  Hidalgos  of  Spain? 
Do  you  know  your  old  friends  when  you  see  them  again  ? 
Hosea  was  Sancho!     You  Dons  of  Madrid, 
But  Sancho  that  wielded  the  lance  of  the  Cid  ! 

It  was  the  men  of  Massachusetts  that  Holmes  cele- 
brated in  song  most  freely  and  most  frequently,  and  al- 
though he  wrote  stirring  stanzas  of  appeal  to  the  whole 
United  States,  west  and  east,  when  the  life  of  the  nation  was 
in  danger,  it  was  in  the  little  city  of  Boston  that  his  spirit 
resided  oftenest.  He  it  was  who  declared  that  "  Boston 
State  House  is  the  hub  of  the  solar  system,"  and  that 
"you  couldn't  pry  that  out  of  a  Boston  man  if  you  had  the 
tire  of  all  creation  straightened  out  for  a  crowbar."  He 
himself  was  a  Bostonian  of  the  strictest  sect ;  he  might 
make  fun  of  the  little  city,  but  he  loved  it  all  the  better 
for  every  joke  he  cracked  upon  it. 

As  we  turn  the  pages  of  the  three  volumes  into  which  he 
finally  collected  all  his  verse,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be 
struck  by  the  very  large  proportion  of  it  which  is  local 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES  181 

in  its  themes,  even  if  it  is  not  local  in  its  interest.  He 
responded  loyally  to  every  call  Boston  might  make  upon 
him,  and  Boston  repaid  him  with  homage  and  with  high 
praise.  It  was  in  Boston  that  a  great  public  breakfast 
was  given  to  him  in  honor  of  his  seventieth  birthday. 
That  was  in  1879;  and  three  years  later  he  resigned  his 
professorship. 

In  1886  he  went  over  to  Europe  for  the  second  time, 
almost  exactly  fifty  years  after  his  first  visit.  He  spent 
the  summer  in  England  and  France,  and  he  seems  to 


have  had  a  very  good  time  indeed,  for  he  kept  in  age 
the  youthful  faculty  of  enjoyment.  From  the  members 
of  his  own  profession  in  England,  from  the  men  of 
letters  in  London,  from  the  fashionable  society  of  Great 
Britain,  Dr.  Holmes  received  the  heartiest  welcome  ;  and 
he  was  the  lion  of  the  London  season.  He  took  notes  of 
his  travels,  recording  his  observations  of  men  and  of  man- 
ners ;  and  on  his  return  home  these  jottings  were  written 


I  $2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

out,  and  published  the  next  year  as  "  Our  Hundred  Days 
in  Europe."  It  is  an  easy  and  a  pleasing  narrative,  rich  in 
the  flavor  of  the  author's  own  personality. 

After  he  had  settled  down  again  in  Boston,  Dr.  Holmes 
continued  to  write  both  in  prose  and  in  verse.  He  kept  his 
faculties  fully  until  he  had  long  passed  the  age  of  four- 
score. His  final  volume  of  poems,  published  in  1888,  was 
appropriately  called  "  Before  the  Curfew,"  just  as  Long- 
fellow and  Whittier  (also  looking  to  the  end)  had  named 
their  last  volumes  "  In  the  Harbor"  and  "At  Sundown." 
Yet  after  the  poems  in  this  collection  Holmes  wrote  those 
scattered  through  the  pages  of  "  Over  the  Teacups," 
which  was  published  in  1890.  Four  years  later  he  died, 
on  October  7,  1894  —  more  than  sixty  years  since  he  had 
first  made  himself  widely  known  to  his  countrymen  by  the 
ringing  appeal  for  "Old  Ironsides." 

Although  Holmes  had  written  poems  of  a  wide  popu- 
larity—  "Dorothy  Q.,"  "Grandmother's  Story  of  Bunker 
Hill  Battle,"  the  "Wonderful  One-Hoss  Shay,"  and  the 
"Broomstick  Train"  —  probably  his  prose  will  endure 
longer  than  his  verse.  For  his  chief  quality  was  intelli- 
gence, and  poetry  demands  rather  imagination.  His  versa- 
tility, too,  was  perhaps  more  apparent  than  real,  because  it 
was  but  the  result  of  the  dominant  intelligence  directed  into 
different  channels.  The  force  of  this  intelligence  was 
indisputable  ;  and  Holmes  could  make  it  masquerade  as 
wisdom  and  as  knowledge,  as  shrewdness  and  as  wit  —  and 
even  as  poetry.  It  is  seen  at  its  best  in  the  "  Autocrat  of 
the  Breakfast  Table,"  and  that  is  why  that  book  is  better 
in  kind  and  in  degree  than  any  of  its  fellows. 

With  this  intelligence  Holmes  had  also  absolute  sanity 
—  and  yet  he  was  not  intolerant  even  toward  the  bores 
and  the  cranks.  He  had  abundant  humor,  and  that  helped 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES  183 

to  sweeten  his  life  and  to  broaden  his  influence.  Perhaps 
a  certain  softening  of  the  asperity  of  religious  debate  is 
due  to  his  preaching  and  to  his  practice.  To  the  whole 
United  States  he  set  an  example  of  kindliness  and  of 
gentleness,  associated  with  sagacity  and  with  strength. 
He  himself  was  an  exemplar  of  the  amenities  he  pro- 
claimed. He  was  the  last  to  survive  of  the  great  New 
England  group  of  authors,  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Haw- 
thorne, Whittier,  Holmes,  and  Lowell,  which  followed,  and 
in  some  ways  surpassed,  the  earlier  New  York  group, 
Irving,  Cooper,  and  Bryant. 

QUESTIONS.  —  In  what  ways  did  Holmes  give  indication,  even  before 
he  completed  his  education,  of  a  decided  literary  bent? 

What  events  showed  the  attainment  by  Holmes  of  maturity  in  the 
two  kinds  of  writing  in  which  he  was  destined  to  become  famous  ? 

In  what  department  of  letters  did  Holmes  first  make  a  reputation? 

Describe  the  series  of  works  by  which  that  reputation  was  at  once 
shifted  in  field  and  enlarged  in  extent. 

Compare  Holmes's  achievements  as  a  novelist  with  his  work  as  a 
biographer. 

Compare  geographically  the  sympathies  of  Holmes  with  those  of 
Whittier  and  Longfellow. 

What  events  may  be  mentioned  as  showing  how  he  was  appreciated 
both  at  home  and  abroad  ? 

Is  Holmes's  fame  most  likely  to  be  founded  hereafter  on  his  prose 
or  on  his  poetry?  Why? 


NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Holmes's  works  is  that  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  (13  vols.,  $19.50).  The  Cambridge  edition  contains  all 
the  poems  in  a  single  volume  ($2),  "  Grandmother's  Story  of  Bunker  Hill  Battle," 
etc.,  and  "  My  Hunt  after  the  Captain,"  etc.,  can  be  had  as  separate  numbers  of  the 
Riverside  Literature  series  (15  cents). 

The  authorized  biography  is  that  by  Mr.  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  now  in  prepara- 
tion. 

For  criticism,  see  Lowell's  "Fable  for  Critics";  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  (in  his 
"American  Poets")  ;  and  Prof.  C.  F.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "American  Lit- 
erature "}« 


XIV      HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

THE  little  town  of  Concord  has  many  titles  to  remem- 
brance. There  "the  embattled  farmers  stood  and  fired 
the  shot  heard  round  the  world;"  there  Emerson  wrote 
4 'Nature"  ;  there  Hawthorne  wrote  the  "Mosses  from  an 
Old  Manse  "  ;  and  there  was  born  and  lived  and  died  Henry 
D.  Thoreau,  an  author  of  even  a  more  marked  individuality 
than  either  Emerson  or  Hawthorne.  This  man  was  in 
many  ways  a  true  American  ;  he  was  free  from  allegiance 
to  Europe;  he  was  possessed  by  the  democratic  spirit. 
On  the  other 'hand,  he  was  content  with  a  mere  living ;  he 

184 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 


I8S 


had  no  wish  to  make  money ;  he  had  no  desire  to  get  on  in 
the  world  ;  he  preferred  to  limit  his  own  wants  and  not  to 
be  a  servant  to  his  own  money. 

Henry  D.  Thoreau  was  born  on  July  12,  1817.  He 
went  to  school  in  Concord  and  in  Boston  ;  and  he  entered 
Harvard  College  when  he  was  sixteen,  graduating  in  1837. 
His  family  were  not  well  off,  and  Henry  was  aided  through 


Thoreau's  Residence,  Concord,  Mass. 

college  much  as  his  townsman  Emerson  had  been  a  few 
years  earlier.  He  also  helped  to  pay  his  own  way  by 
teaching  school.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  conscientious 
student  at  college ;  and  he  profited  by  the  instruction  he 
received.  He  was  attracted  especially  by  Greek  literature, 
translating  some  of  the  tragedies  and  mastering  the  lyric 
poems.  Through  life  he  retained  a  liking  for  Greek  modes 


1 86 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


of  thought  and  of  expression.  As  a  writer  he  strove  to 
attain  to  a  Greek  clearness  and  conciseness;  and  he  suc- 
ceeded often  in  achieving  a  Greek  felicity  of  phrase.  He 
began  early  to  think  for  himself,  and  to  keep  a  journal  in 
which  he  set  down  his  thoughts  and  his  observations  of 
nature. 

Thoreau's  family  made  pencils  for  a  living,  and  this  trade 

Henry  mastered  easily. 
He  was  always  swift  to 
pick  up  a  handicraft.  He 
worked  also  as  a  carpen- 
ter, and  occasionally  he 
got  a  job  of  surveying. 
He  began  to  lecture 
within  a  year  after  his 
graduation  from  college  ; 
and  lecturing  was  a  re- 
source he  availed  him- 
self of  now  and  again 
throughout  his  life.  He 
wrote  poems  and  prose 
papers  printed  by  Emer- 
son in  the  Dial,  the  short-lived  organ  of  the  Transcen- 
dentalists. 

It  was  on  a  piece  of  land  belonging  to  Emerson,  a  bit  of 
woodland  on  the  margin  of  Walden  Pond,  that  Thoreau 
built  himself  a  shanty  in  1845.  In  tnig  l^6  nut>  a  m^e 
from  any  neighbor,  he  dwelt  for  two  years  and  two  months. 
He  took  up  with  this  way  of  living  because  he  wished  to 
"transact  some  private  business,"  so  he  said.  What  he 
wanted  was  solitude  in  which  to  write  out  a  book,  record- 
ing his  excursion  of  a  week  down  the  Concord  and  the 
Merrimac  rivers. 


Hut  on  Walden  Pond 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU  187 

He  made  this  account  ready  for  the  press  during  his 
sojourn  in  the  Walden  woods  ;  and  he  enlarged  his 
acquaintance  with  the  outdoor  world ;  and  he  wrote  regu- 
larly in  his  journal.  Then  when  his  business  was  trans- 
acted he  went  back  to  civilization  —  never  having  been 
out  of  touch  with  it  for  more  than  a  few  days  at  a  time. 
"  I  left  the  woods  for  as  good  a  reason  as  I  went  there," 
he  declared.  In  other  words,  he  had  done  what  he  went 
there  to  do  and  he  had  learnt  all  that  the  life  alone  by 
Walden  Pond  could  teach  him. 

At  last  he  succeeded  in  finding  a  publisher  willing  to 
issue  the  book  he  had  made  ready  in  his  self-enforced 
solitude  in  his  shanty  ;  and  in  1849  appeared  "A  Week  on 
the  Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers."  It  was  the  account  of 
a  journey  in  which  the  narrator  talked  of  himself  and  of 
his  feelings  and  of  his  thoughts  quite  as  much  as  he  spoke 
of  the  places  he  passed  and  of  the  people  he  met.  Per- 
haps because  of  the  strangeness  of  his  frank  egotism,  the 
book  did  not  then  please  the  public ;  and  when  Thoreau 
settled  finally  with  the  publisher,  four  years  after  it  had 
appeared,  he  took  back  at  least  two  thirds  of  the  first 
edition.  Without  complaint  he  himself  carried  the  unsold 
copies  upstairs  to  the  garret  and  then  made  the  character- 
istically witty  entry  in  his  journal,  "  I  have  now  a  library 
of  nearly  nine  hundred  volumes,  over  seven  hundred  of 
which  I  wrote  myself." 

Five  years  after  the  publication  of  the  "Week" 
Thoreau  issued  his  second  book,  the  only  other  volume  of 
his  abundant  writing  to  be  printed  during  his  own  life.  He 
drew  from  the  journal  he  had  kept  while  he  was  living  in 
the  shanty  the  material  for  a  book  which  was  published  in 
1854  as  "Walden."  This  is  the  work  by  which  Thoreau 
is  best  known  now  and  in  which  his  doctrine  of  life  is 


1 88  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

declared  most  clearly.  The  key  to  Thoreau's  philosophy 
is  to  be  found  in  his  saying  that  "  a  man  is  rich  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  things  which  he  can  afford  to  let 
alone."  "I  went  to  the  woods,"  so  he  tells  us,  "because 
I  wished  to  live  deliberately,  to  front  only  the  essential 
facts  of  life,  and  to  see  if  I  could  not  learn  what  it  had  to 
teach,  and  not,  when  I  came  to  die,  discover  that  I  had 
not  lived." 

Some  of  the  readers  of  "  Walden "  did  not  seize  the 
point  of  this  declaration.  Whittier  wrote  to  a  friend  when 
the  book  was  just  published,  that  he  found  it  "capital 
reading,"  but  that  "the  practical  moral  of  it  seems  to  be 
that  if  a  man  is  willing  to  sink  himself  into  a  woodchuck 
he  can  live  as  cheaply  as  that  quadruped  ;  but  after  all, 
for  me,  I  prefer  walking  on  two  legs."  Now  this  is  not 
quite  fair,  for  Thoreau  was  not  sinking  himself  into  a 
woodchuck  when  he  tried  plain  living  that  he  might  have 
high  thinking ;  and  "  Walden  "  is  a  most  wholesome  warn- 
ing to  all  those  who  are  willing  to  let  life  itself  be  smoth- 
ered out  of  them  by  the  luxuries  they  have  allowed  to  be- 
come necessaries.  This  is  why  "Walden"  has  been  called 
one  of  the  few  books  of  American  authorship  which  it  is 
worth  while  for  an  American  to  read  regularly  every 
year. 

Thoreau  never  married  ;  and  a  man  without  a  wife  and 
without  a  child  can  take  chances  and  simplify  his  life  in 
a  way  impossible  to  the  man  who  has  given  hostages  to 
fortune.  Thoreau  had  little  incentive  to  struggle  and 
to  take  part  in  any  race  for  wealth.  His  wants  were 
always  simple  and  few.  If  he  had  but  food  and  warmth 
and  shelter  and  a  book  at  hand  and  a  friend  within  an 
hour's  walk  he  was  content.  "The  cost  of  a  thing,"  he 
wrote,  "  is  the  amount  of  what  I  will  call  life  which  is 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU  189 

required  to  be  exchanged  for  it,  immediately  or  in  the 
long  run." 

In  the  simplification  of  his  own  existence  Thoreau  was 
sincere ;  he  followed  the  bent  of  his  nature.  Therefore 
was  Emerson  able  to  write  of  him  after  his  death,  "he 
was  bred  to  no  profession  ;  he  never  married  ;  he  lived 
alone ;  he  never  went  to  church ;  he  never  voted ;  he 
refused  to  pay  a  tax  to  the  State  ;  he  ate  no  flesh,  he  drank 
no  wine,  he  never  knew  the  use  of  tobacco ;  and,  though 
a  naturalist,  he  used  neither  trap  nor  gun." 

His  refusal  to  pay  his  tax  to  the  State  was  due  to  his 
hatred  of  slavery  and  to  his  unwillingness  to  be  a  partner  in 
the  government  which  held  slavery  to  be  legal.  It  was  his 
poll  tax  that  he  declined  to  pay,  not  his  road  tax  —  for  that 
he  found  the  money  cheerfully,  wishing  always  to  be  a  good 
neighbor.  After  John  Brown's  vain  effort  at  Harpers 
Ferry  in  1858,  Thoreau  stood  forward  in  public  and  told 
his  fellow-citizens  of  Concord  in  what  high  esteem  he  had 
held  the  character  of  the  man  whom  many  have  since 
called  the  martyr  of  the  anti-slavery  cause. 

He  prepared  articles  for  various  magazines,  many  of 
which  were  published  during  his.  life  and  some  after  his 
death  —  which  occurred  when  he  was  only  forty-four. 
He  developed  consumption,  and  long  before  the  end  came 
at  last  he  knew  that  it  would  come  soon.  He  suffered 
especially  from  sleeplessness,  but  he  faced  his  fate  with 
fortitude.  "  His  patience  was  unfailing ;  assuredly  he 
knew  not  aught  save  resignation  ;  he  did  mightily  cheer 
and  console  those  whose  strength  was  less."  He  died 
on  May  6,  1862,  and  he  had  a  public  funeral  from  the 
Concord  church.  He  was  buried  in  the  "  Sleepy  Hol- 
low," where  Hawthorne  and  Emerson  have  since  joined 
him. 


190 


192  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

Since  his  death,  volume  after  volume  of  his  writings 
have  been  published,  some  collected  from  magazines  and 
others  extracted  from  the  journal  he  had  kept  for  thirty 
years.  Two  of  these  books  have  a  certain  unity  ;  one  of 
them  is  his  account  of  his  pioneering  adventures  in  the 
"Maine  Woods,"  published  in  1864;  and  the  other  is  the 
somewhat  similar  record  of  the  several  walks  he  took 
along  the  sandy  shores  of  "Cape  Cod,"  published  in  1865. 
Under  the  apt  title  of  "  Excursions  "  a  collection  of  his 
scattered  papers  appeared  the  year  after  his  death,  with 
a  prefatory  memoir  by  his  fellow-townsman  Emerson,  who 
was  fourteen  years  older  than  he  and  who  survived  him 
still  twenty  years. 

The  observations  on  nature  patiently  recorded,  day  and 
night,  year  after  year,  have  been  winnowed,  and  the  best  of 
them  are  now  in  print  in  four  volumes,  "  Early  Spring  in 
Massachusetts,"  "  Summer,"  "Autumn, "and  "Winter." 
Perhaps  it  is  as  a  naturalist  that  Thoreau  has  the  widest 
reputation.  He  had  an  extraordinary  familiarity  with  sylvan 
life,  and  the  shy  creatures  of  the  field  and  the  forest  lost 
some  of  their  shyness  with  him.  He  is  said  to  have  drawn 
a  woodchuck  from  its  hole  by  the  tail  and  to  have  caught 
a  fish  in  the  lake  with  only  his  hand.  "  He  knew  how  to 
sit  immovable,  a  part  of  the  rock  he  rested  on,"  so  Emer- 
son tells  us,  "  until  che  bird,  the  reptile,  the  fish,  which 
had  retired  from  him,  should  come  back  and  resume  its 
habits  —  nay,  moved  by  curiosity,  should  come  to  him  and 
watch  him."  He  was  a  chief  of  the  poet  naturalists,  and 
he  was  not  only  intimate  with  nature  but  friendly.  One 
who  knew  him  said  that  he  jalked  "about  Nature  just  as 
if  she'd  been  born  and  brought  up  in  Concord." 

He  was  always  more  poet  than  naturalist,  for  his  obser- 
vation, interesting  as  it  ever  is,  is  rarely  novel.  It  is  his 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  193 

way  of  putting  what  he  has  seen  that  takes  us  rather  than 
any  freshness  in  the  observation  itself.  His  sentences 
have  sometimes  a  Greek  perfection  ;  they  have  the  fresh- 
ness, the  sharpness,  and  the  truth  which  we  find  so 
often  in  the  writings  of  the  Greeks  who  came  early  into 
literature,  before  everything  had  been  seen  and  said.  Tho- 
reau  had  a  Yankee  skill  with  his  fingers,  and  he  could 
whittle  the  English  language  in  like  manner ;  so  he  had 
also  a  Greek  faculty  of  packing  an  old  truth  into  an  unex- 
pected sentence.  He  was  not  afraid  of  exaggeration  and 
paradox,  so  long  as  he  could  surprise  the  reader  into  a 
startled  reception  of  his  thought.  He  was  above  all  an 
artist  in  words,  a  ruler  of  the  vocabulary,  a  master  phrase- 
maker.  But  his  phrases  were  all  sincere  ;  he  never  said 
what  he  did  not  think  ;  he  was  true  to  himself  always. 

QUESTIONS.  —  Speak  of  the  contrasting  traits  of  the  third  in  the  trio 
of  American  authors  who  contributed  to  make  Concord  famous. 

Show  how  certain  qualities  of  Thoreau's  style  as  a  writer  may  be 
traced  to  the  circumstances  of  his  education. 

What  is  the  history  of  Thoreau's  first  book?  How  did  his  second 
one  grow  out  of  this  one? 

Mention  some  of  the  circumstances  which  seem  to  justify  Thoreau 
in  his  attempts  to  live  up  to  his  theory. 

Characterize  the  work  of  Thoreau  with  reference  to  subject  matter 
and  expression. 

NOTE.  —  The  only  complete  edition  of  Thoreau's  works  is  that  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  (n  vols.,  $16.50).  The  "Succession  of  Forest  Trees," 
etc.,  with  biographical  sketch  by  Emerson,  can  be  had  as  a  separate  number  of  the 
Riverside  Literature  series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  15  cents). 

There  are  biographies  by  Mr.  H.  A.  Page  and  Mr.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  who  has  also 
edited  Thoreau's  letters. 

For  criticism,  see  Emerson's  sketch;  Lowell  (in  "  My  Study  Windows") ;  Mr. 
T.  W.  Higginson  (in  "Short  Studies  of  American  Authors");  R.  L.  Stevenson 
(in  "Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books";  Mr.  John  Burroughs  (in  "Indoor 
Studies") ;  and  Prof.  Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "American  Literature"). 

AMER.  LIT.  —  13 


XV    JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL 

THE  Lowells  have  always  held  an  honored  place  in  the 
local  history  of  New  England.  One  member  of  the  family 
introduced  cotton-spinning  into  the  United  States ;  and 
for  him  the  town  of  Lowell  in  Massachusetts  is  named. 
Another  left  money  to  found  in  Boston  the  course  of 
lectures  known  as  the  Lowell  Institute.  The  most  dis- 
tinguished of  them  all  was  James  Russell  Lowell,  who 
was  born  in  1819  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on  Feb- 
ruary 22  —  the  birthday  of  the  most  distinguished  of  all 
Americans. 

194 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  195 

His  father  was  a  Boston  clergyman  of  high  character 
and  fine  training,  and  his  mother,  who  was  descended  from 
an  Orkney  family,  had  an  ardent  appreciation  of  poetry 
and  romance,  which  she  was  able  to  transmit  to  her  chil- 
dren. The  boy  grew  to  manhood  in  Cambridge,  then 
little  more  than  a  straggling  village.  There  he  went  to  a 
dame  school :  — 

Propped  on  the  marsh,  a  dwelling  now,  I  see, 

The  humble  schoolhouse  of  my  A,  B,  C, 

Where  well-drilled  urchins,  each  behind  his  tire, 

WTaited  in  ranks  the  wished  command  to  fire ; 

Then  all  together,  when  the  signal  came, 

Discharged  their  a-b  abs  against  the  dame, 

She,  'mid  the  volleyed  learning,  firm  and  calm, 

Patted  the  furloughed  ferule  on  her  palm, 

And,  to  our  wonder,  could  divine  at  once 

Who  flashed  the  pan,  and  who  was  downright  dunce. 

At  the  age  of  eight  or  nine  he  was  sent  as  a  day  pupil 
to  a  boarding  school  in  Cambridge,  where  the  boys  were 
made  to  work  hard.  To  the  training  and  to  the  instruc- 
tions received  at  this  school  Lowell  owed  much  in  after 
life.  It  happened  that  two  or  three  of  the  letters  he 
wrote  then  to  a  brother  away  from  home  have  been  kept, 
and  they  show  that  he  was  already  fond  of  books,  often 
thinking  about  them  and  always  glad  to  get  them.  In  one 
letter  written  before  he  was  ten  he  tells  his  brother  that 
their  mother  has  .just  given  him  three  volumes  of  Scott's 
"Tales  of  a  Grandfather,"  and  he  declares  "I  have  got 
quite  a  library." 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  entered  Harvard.  This  was 
in  1834,  and  in  1836  Longfellow  came  to  the  college  to 
teach  literature,  succeeding  Ticknor,  the  historian  of  Span- 
ish literature  —  as  Lowell  was  to  succeed  Longfellow  a 


196  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

score  of  years  later.  At  Harvard  Lowell  was  not  a  dili- 
gent student ;  he  liked  better  to  read  what  interested  him 
than  to  master  the  tasks  set  before  him  by  the  college 
authorities.  Spenser  was  already  a  favorite  poet  of  his, 
and  he  seems  early  to  have  entered  on  the  study  of  Dante, 
which  was  to  be  a  life-long  pleasure  to  him. 

He  began  to  rime  himself,  and  in  his  junior  year  he 
wrote  the  anniversary  poem.  He  was  made  editor  of 
the  college  magazine  in  his  senior  year.  He  seems  to 
have  been  popular  with  his  classmates  and  he  was  chosen 
to  write  the  class  poem.  But  he  had  so  neglected  certain 
of  the  prescribed  studies  of  the  college  that  he  was  sus- 
pended for  several  months,  and  as  the  term  of  suspension 
extended  over  class-day,  he  was  not  able  himself  to  deliver 
the  poem  he  had  written.  He  had  it  printed  for  his  com- 
panions, although  he  held  it  in  too  slight  esteem  ever  to 
include  it  among  the  poems  of  his  maturity. 

After  his  graduation  he  thought  of  entering  the  Divinity 
School,  but  he  decided  at  last  to  study  law.  Although  he 
was  on  the  very  verge  of  giving  it  up  twenty  times,  he 
persevered  and  received  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Laws 
in  1840.  He  opened  an  office  in  Boston,  but  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  he  ever  had  even  that  first  client  whom  he 
was  afterward  to  describe  in  a  humorous  sketch.  With 
no  great  liking  for  the  law  as  a  means  of  livelihood,  he 
finally  abandoned  it,  as  Holmes  had  done  only  a  few  years 
earlier. 

Lowell  had  become  engaged  to  Miss  Maria  White,  who 
was  to  influence  the  whole  course  of  his  life.  The  first 
result  of  his  happy  love  was  the  publication  in  1841  of  a 
volume  of  poems,  some  of  which  had  been  printed  already 
in  the  magazines,  and  others  were  hasty  and  crude  rimes 
which  he  kept  out  of  later  editions  of  his  poems  —  just  as 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  197 

Whittier  rejected  his  own  early  verses.  Lowell  was  barely 
twenty-two  when  this  book  appeared,  but  there  was  more 
than  one  poem  in  it  which  gave  high  promise  of  his  fu- 
ture. In  addition  to  his  ability,  he  had  a  deep  love  for 
letters ;  and  this  it  was  which  led  him  a  year  later  to  start 
a  monthly  magazine.  In  his  ardor  and  in  his  inexperience 
he  made  this  periodical  too  exclusively  literary  to  attain 
a  wide  popularity;  and,  unfortunately,  after  three  numbers 
it  came  to  an  end  suddenly,  leaving  its  projectors  in  debt. 

In  his  class  poem  Lowell  had  shown  himself  lacking  in 
sympathy  with  the  Transcendentalists  and  with  the  Aboli- 
tionists ;  and  until  he  met  Miss  White  his  interests  and 
his  ambitions  were  almost  wholly  literary.  Under  her 
influence  his  higher  nature  developed  and  he  came  to  have 
a  strong  feeling  for  the  fellow  human  beings  who  were 
held  in  bondage.  He  swiftly  saw  that  in  real  life  there 
were  causes  to  be  fought  far  better  worth  the  struggle 
than  any  mere  craving  for  personal  fame.  His  love  for 
letters  never  lessened,  but  it  was  linked  thereafter  to  the 
love  for  human  freedom. 

He  was  married  at  last  in  1844,  in  which  year  he 
brought  out  a  revised  edition  of  his  poems.  A  few 
months  later  he  gathered  from  the  magazines  certain 
prose  criticisms,  chiefly  about  the  older  English  poets  — 
criticisms  which  he  thought  so  lightly  of  in  later  years 
that  he  did  not  allow  them  to  be  included  in  his  collected 
works.  And  about  this  time  he  was  a  frequent  contribu- 
tor to  the  Pennsylvania  Freeman,  the  antislavery  journal 
formerly  edited  by  Whittier. 

Settled  at  Cambridge  in  Elmwood  (the  beautiful  old 
house  where  he  had  been  born),  happily  married,  sup- 
porting himself  by  his  writings  and  enlisted  in  the  ser- 
vice of  a  cause  which  he  had  taken  to  heart,  Lowell  was 


198 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


able  to  conquer  his  native  indolence.  He  undertook  to 
contribute  every  week,  either  in  prose  or  in  verse,  to  one 
of  the  ablest  of  the  antislavery  journals ;  and  he  kept  this 
agreement  for  nearly  four  years,  from  1846  to  1850.  These 
were  four  years  of  unrest  and  excitement  throughout  the 
world;  and  here  in  the  United  States  the  discussion  over 
slavery  became  more  and  more  acute. 


Elmwood 


Chiefly  to  gain  an  increase  of  territory  for  the  expansion 
of  slavery,  this  country  was  involved  in  a  war  with  Mexico 
over  the  admission  of  Texas.  Although  it  is  easy  enough 
now  to  see  that  we  needed  the  new  lands  we  were  to  gain 
by  force  of  arms,  and  that  without  them  the  proper  expan- 
sion of  the  United  States  was  not  possible,  it  was  hard  to 
foresee  this  then.  What  was  obvious  at  that  time  was 
that  both  the  motives  and  the  methods  of  those  who  were 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  199 

urging  us  into  the  Mexican  war  were  alike  unworthy. 
This  is  what  Lowell  saw  with  his  usual  keenness ;  and  no 
one  attacked  those  responsible  for  the  Mexican  war  more 
sharply  than  he  or  more  effectively. 

The  weapon  he  chose  was  satiric  verse  written  in  the 
homely  dialect  of  the  New  England  farmer.  With  pun- 
gent humor  and  in  stanzas  that  had  a  sharp  flavor  of  the 
soil,  "Hosea  Biglow"  made  fun  of  the  attempts  to  rouse  his 
fellow-citizens  to  military  fervor.  His  stinging  lines,  which 
scorched  themselves  into  the  memory,  were  accompanied 
by  the  prose  comments  of  "  Parson  Wilbur,"  who  repre- 
sented the  other  side  of  the  New  England  character.  While 
the  clergyman  was  glad  to  air  his  culture  and  his  classics, 
he  served  admirably  to  set  off  the  simple  frankness  of 
the  Yankee  youth. 

That  the  lyrics  of  Hosea  should  linger  in  the  ears  of 
those  who  heard  them,  Lowell  took  care  to  give  to  each 
a  swinging  rhythm  and  often  also  a  catching  refrain. 
When  at  last  the  scattered  "  Biglow  Papers "  were  col- 
lected into  a  volume  in  1848,  the  author,  just  to  show 
that  the  New  England  dialect  was  serviceable  for  other 
things  than  satire,  added  to  the  book  a  Yankee  idyl,  "  The 
Courtin',''  one  of  the  most  beautifully  natural  love  epi- 
sodes in  all  English  poetry. 

During  these  same  years  of  political  turmoil  while  he 
was  writing  the  "  Biglow  Papers "  one  after  another, 
Lowell  produced  another  satire  of  a  very  different  kind, 
the  "Fable  for  Critics,"  which  was  also  published  in 
1848  ;  it  was  purely  literary  in  its  outlook;  it  was  a  con- 
sideration in  verse  of  the  state  of  American  literature  at 
the  end  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  con- 
tained a  gallery  of  portraits  of  the  American  authors  then 
prominent ;  and  in  every  portrait  the  characteristic  features 


200  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

of  the  original  were  seized  with  swift  insight  and  repro- 
duced with  sharp  vigor. 

It  is  a  proof  of  Lowell's  excellence  of  judgment  and  of 
his  independence  of  attitude,  that  the  opinions  he  expressed 
about  the  leading  American  authors  of  that  time  coincide 
closely  with  that  on  which  the  best  criticism  is  now  agreed 
fifty  years  later.  And  the  rattling  lines  of  the  poem  are 
as  readable  now  as  when  they  were  first  written,  with  their 
scattering  fire  of  verbal  jokes,  of  ingenious  rimes,  and  of 
personal  witticisms.  As  the  "Biglow  Papers"  is  the 
firmest  and  the  finest  political  satire  yet  written  in  the 
United  States,  so  the  "  Fable  for  Critics"  is  the  clearest 
and  most  truthful  literary  satire. 

Nor  did  these  two  satires  withdraw  him  wholly  from  the 
higher  poetry  on  which  his  heart  was  set.  And  in  this 
same  year,  1848,  he  sent  forth  also  the  "  Vision  of  Sir 
Launfal,"  his  first  attempt  at  telling  a  story  in  verse.  It 
is  the  best  of  all  his  serious  poems  ;  perhaps  loftier  in 
conception  and  more  careful  in  execution.  His  habit  then, 
as  always,  was  to  brood  over  the  subject  he  wished  to  treat 
in  verse,  to  fill  himself  with  it,  to  work  himself  up  to  a 
white  heat  over  it,  and  finally  to  write  it  out  at  a  single  sit- 
ting if  possible.  He  rarely  revised  and  his  verse  lacked 
finish  and  polish,  though  it  never  wanted  force.  It  was  at 
this  time  that  he  told  Longfellow  he  meant  to  give  up 
poetry  because  he  could  "  not  write  slowly  enough." 

His  poetry  also  suffered  from  another  failing  of  his.  He 
was  not  content  to  set  forth  beauty  only  and  to  let  the  reader 
discover  a  moral  for  himself.  Like  Longfellow  sometimes 
and  like  Whittier  often,  Lowell  insisted  unduly  on  the  bur- 
den of  his  song.  And  he  knew  his  own  defect  and  wrote 
later  in  life,  "  I  shall  never  be  a  poet  till  I  get  out  of  the 
pulpit,  and  New  England  was  all  meetinghouse  when  I 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  2OI 

was  growing  up."  In  the  "Fable  for  Critics  "(which  was 
published  without  his  own  name  as  author,  and  in  which 
he  thought  it  best  to  include  himself  among  the  poets 
satirized)  he  thus  judges  his  own  efforts :  — 

There  is  Lowell,  who's  striving  Parnassus  to  climb  — 

With  a  whole  bale  of  isms  tied  together  with  rime ; 

He  might  get  on  alone,  spite  of  brambles  and  boulders, 

But  he  can't  with  that  bundle  he  has  on  his  shoulders ; 

The  top  of  the  hill  he  will  ne'er  come  nigh  reaching 

Till  he  learns  the  distinction  'twixt  singing  and  preaching ; 

His  lyre  has  some  chords  that  would  ring  pretty  well, 

But  he'd  rather  by  half  make  a  drum  of  the  shell, 

And  rattle  away  till  he's  old  as  Methusalem, 

At  the  head  of  a  march  to  the  last  new  Jerusalem. 

During  these  years  when  Lowell  was  making  his  way  as 
a  poet  and  when  he  was  happy  in  his  work,  the  health  of 
his  wife  was  slowly  fading.  For  her  sake  they  went  to 
Europe  in  1851,  returning  the  following  year.  In  spite  of 
all  that  could  be  done  for  her  she  died  in  October,  1853. 
As  it  happened,  a  daughter  was  born  to  Longfellow  on  the 
day  of  the  death  of  Lowell's  wife,  and  in  the  lovely  poem 
of  the  "Two  Angels"  the  elder  poet  tried  to  console  the 
younger. 

Angels  of  Life  and  Death  alike  are  His ; 

Without  His  leave  they  pass  no  threshold  o'er: 
Who,  then,  would  wish  or  dare,  believing  this,  . 

Against  His  messengers  to  shut  the  door? 

In  the  fall  of  1854  Lowell  delivered  a  series  of  lectures 
on  the  English  poets.  These  addresses,  given  at  the 
Lowell  Institute  in  Boston,  revealed  all  the  richness  and 
strength  of  his  culture  and  displayed  the  full  power  of  his 
critical  faculty.  They  proved  that  he  was  the  American 
critic  who  had  at  once  the  keenest  insight  and  the  widest 


202  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

equipment.  Almost  immediately  after  he  had  made  these 
discourses  and  entirely  without  his  own  solicitation  he  was 
offered  the  professorship  of  modern  languages  at  Harvard, 
which  Longfellow  had  just  resigned.  He  accepted  this 
arduous  and  honorable  position  in  the  oldest  American 
university,  and  he  was  allowed  two  years'  leave  of  absence 
to  spend  in  Europe  in  study.  So  it  was  in  the  spring  of 
1857  that  Lowell  became  a  professor  of  Harvard  —  just 
ten  years  after  Dr.  Holmes  had  begun  his  own  connection 
with  that  institution. 

With  Dr.  Holmes  he  was  soon  brought  into  closer  con- 
tact. A  new  American  magazine  was  planned,  to  contain 
contributions  more  particularly  from  the  New  England 
group  of  writers  ;  and  the  editorship  was  offered  to  Lowell. 
The  first  number  of  the  Atlantic  which  appeared  in  1857 
contained  the  opening  paper  of  the  "  Autocrat  of  the 
Breakfast  Table";  and  for  four  years  Lowell  edited  this 
magazine,  toiling  faithfully,  writing  abundantly  himself, 
generally  on  political  themes,  and  encouraging  new  writers 
of  ability.  After  he  resigned  the  editorship  of  the  Atlan- 
tic he  became  for  a  while  one  of  the  conductors  of  the 
North  American  Review,  the  venerable  quarterly  to  which 
Bryant  had  contributed  "  Thanatopsis  "  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury before.  Under  the  title  of  "Fireside  Travels"  he 
published  in  1864  a  volume  of  his  prose  papers  collected 
chiefly  from  the  magazines. 

But  long  before  this  peaceful  prose  appeared,  Lowell  had 
been  moved  again  to  express  in  verse  his  feelings  and  his 
thoughts  on  the  times.  "Hosea  Biglow"  had  come  into 
being  during  the  Mexican  war ;  and  it  was  the  Civil  War 
which  evoked  him  once  more.  Love  of  country  was  the 
core  of  Lowell's  character  and  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebel- 
lion stirred  his  nature  to  its  depths. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  203 

The  second  series  of  the  "  Biglow  Papers,"  written  at 
intervals  during  the  war,  met  with  even  wider  popular 
approval  than  the  first  series  ;  and  certainly  the  stinging 
stanzas  of  "Jonathan  to  John"  are  unsurpassed  in  all 
English  satire.  When  this  second  series  of  the  "  Biglow 
Papers"  were  collected  into  a  volume  in  1867  Lowell 
prefixed  to  it  a  consideration  of  the  past,  the  present,  and 
the  future  of  the  English  language  in  America  —  a  paper 
which  had  scholarship  equal  to  its  humor  and  a  sweetness 
of  temper  equal  to  both  —  a  paper  to  be  read  by  all  who 
want  to  understand  how  it  is  that  we  Americans  own  a 
whole  and  undivided  half  of  the  English  language. 

In  1869  Lowell  made  a  collection  of  his  graver  verse, 
"  Under  the  Willows,"  in  which  he  included  his  more  seri- 
ous poems  of  the  war.  Among  them  were  the  thrilling 
lines  of  the  "  Washers  of  the  Shroud,"  and  the  noble  and 
lofty  ode  recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration  of  those 
of  her  students  who  had  fallen  in  battle  for  the  right  —  the 
ode  in  which  the  poet  set  forth  in  imperishable  phrase  the 
true  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  And  in  this  same 
year  Lowell  also  put  forth  the  longest  of  his  single  poems, 
the  "  Cathedral,"  a  work  in  which  the  parts  are  greater 
than  the  whole,  and  which  is  rather  Gothic  than  Greek  in 
conception  and  execution.  It  is  elevated  in  its  purpose,  and 
yet  there  is  an  occasional  obtrusion  of  prankish  humor  not 
unlike  the  grotesque  faces  which  grin  down  on  the  visitor 
to  the  actual  cathedral  at  Chartres. 

From  the  many  critical  papers  which  he  had  written, 
chiefly  for  the  periodicals  he  had  edited,  and  which  were 
often  founded  on  courses  of  college  lectures,  Lowell  made 
a  first  choice  in  1870,  and  published  "Among  my  Books," 
a  volume  of  prose  essays  in  criticism.  The  year  after, 
another  volume  appeared  called  "  My  Study  Windows "  ; 


204  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

and  a  few  years  later  came  yet  another,  the  second  series 
of  "Among  my  Books."  In  the  final  edition  of  his  writings 
the  contents  of  these  three  volumes  has  been  rearranged 
somewhat.  Among  them  were  the  criticisms  of  the  great 
poets  Dante,  Spenser,  Shakspere,  Milton,  Wordsworth ; 
cordial  papers  on  Lowell's  own  favorites,  Dryden,  Les- 
sing,  and  Keats ;  and  pungent  yet  mellow  essays  "  On  a 
Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners,"  on  "My  Garden 
Acquaintance,"  and  on  "A  Good  Word  for  Winter." 

As  these  volumes  proved,  Lowell  was  the  greatest  of  all 
American  critics  of  literature.  He  had  knowledge  and 
wisdom,  culture  and  sagacity.  His  writing  has  the  lei- 
surely amplitude  of  the  scholar  and  the  sharp  thrust  of  the 
wit.  The  gift  of  the  winged  phrase  was  his  ;  and  no  man 
of  our  time  ever  packed  truth  oftener  into  an  epigram. 
He  had  also  the  wide  and  deep  acquaintance  with  literature 
which  is  the  best  backbone  of  criticism.  So  fine  was  his 
scholarship,  and  so  broad  his  cultivation,  that  he  was  wholly 
devoid  of  petty  pedantries  ;  he  had  too  sure  a  sense  of  pro- 
portion to  confuse  trifling  facts  with  truths  of  real  impor- 
tance. 

Lowell  had  enjoyed  heartily  his  own  frequent  reading  of 
the  works  of  the  great  authors  he  wrote  about,  and  he  was 
able  to  convey  some  of  this  enjoyment  to  his  own  readers, 
and  to  explain  to  them  the  reasons  for  his  liking.  His 
favorite  of  all  was  the  mighty  Florentine  poet  Dante, 
whom  he  steadily  studied  from  early  life.  Indeed,  the 
advice  he  gave  to  young  men  seeking  culture  was  to  find 
the  great  writer  whom  they  most  appreciated  and  to  give 
themselves  to  the  constant  perusal  of  this  great  writer, 
growing  up  to  him  slowly  and  discovering  gradually  that 
to  understand  him  adequately  would  force  them  sooner  or 
later  to  learn  many  of  the  things  best  worth  learning. 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  205 

When  the  time  came  to  celebrate  the  centenary  of  the 
chief  events  of  the  Revolution,  Lowell  was  the  poet  to  whom 
the  American  people  turned  to  have  their  thoughts  and 
their  sentiments  voiced  for  them  in  verse ;  and  Lowell 
delivered  an  ode  at  the  centenary  of  the  fight  at  Concord 
Bridge,  and  another  at  the  centenary  of  Washington's  tak- 
ing command  of  the  American  army  at  Cambridge  just 
before  the  siege  of  Boston,  and  a  third  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  187$.  In  this  same  year  these  "Three  Memorial 
Poems  "  were  published  together  in  a  single  volume. 

The  next  year  he  was  called  to  the  service  of  the  coun- 
try whose  foundation  he  had  been  celebrating  in  song. 
He  was  sent  in  1877  as  American  Minister  to  Spain, 
where  another  man  of  letters,  Washington  Irving,  had 
preceded  him  half  a  century  before.  In  1880  he  was 
transferred  from  Madrid  to  London. 

No  American  minister  ever  made  himself  more  welcome 
among  a  foreign  people  than  Lowell  made  himself  among 
the  British.  And  his  popularity  was  not  due  to  any  at- 
tempt to  please  their  prejudices  ;  Lowell  abated  not  a  jot 
or  tittle  of  his  Americanism  —  rather  on  occasion  did  he 
accentuate  it.  In  sending  him  to  Great  Britain  the  United 
States  sent  the  best  we  had.  Our  kin  across  the  sea  were 
quick  to  understand  the  opportunity  offered  to  them  ;  and 
by  their  request  Lowell  delivered  in  England  many  public 
addresses,  some  of  them  formal  orations,  while  others  were 
but  offhand  after  dinner  speeches.  But  whatever  the  occa- 
sion, Lowell  was  equal  to  it,  never  more  amply  than  when 
he  went  to  Birmingham  to  make  an  exposition  of  the  theory 
and  practice  of  "  Democracy "  in  America.  Nowhere 
more  plainly  than  in  England  was  Lowell's  Americanism 
seen  to  be  ingrained.  With  him  patriotism  was  almost 
a  passion. 


206  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

He  remained  in  England  three  years  and  then  returned 
home,  and  Dr.  Holmes  greeted  him  with  a  copy  of  verses, 
in  which  he  asked,  — 

By  what  enchantments,  what  alluring  arts, 

Our  truthful  James  led  captive  British  hearts, — 

Whether  his  shrewdness  made  their  statesmen  halt, 

Or  if  his  learning  found  their  dons  at  fault, 

Or  if  his  virtue  was  a  strange  surprise, 

Or  if  his  wit  flung  sawdust  in  their  eyes,  — 

Like  honest  Yankees  we  can  simply  guess ; 

But  that  he  did  it,  all  must  needs  confess. 

England  herself  without  a  blush  may  claim 

Her  only  conqueror  since  the  Norman  came. 

After  his  return  to  his  native  land  Lowell  revised  the 
most  important  of  the  many  addresses  he  had  delivered  in 
England,  and  in  1886  he  published  them  in  a  single  volume 
under  the  title  of  the  full  and  rich  discourse  in  which  he 
had  declared  the  better  side  of  "Democracy."  Here  at 
home  Lowell  never  hesitated  to  point  out  the  shortcom- 
ings of  his  countrymen,  their  errors  and  their  blunders  ; 
but  when  he  was  abroad  it  was  on  their  merits  only  that 
he  was  willing  to  dwell.  In  the  address  on  "  Democracy  " 
he  had  told  the  British  all  that  was  best  in  our  social  sys- 
tem ;  and  when  he  came  home  he  made  haste  to  tell  us 
Americans  how  we  must  labor  to  remove  all  that  is  evil 
in  our  social  system.  He  did  this  in  a  speech  on  the 
"  Independent  in  Politics,"  and  this  address  was  included 
in  a  volume  of  "Political  Essays  "published  in  1888. 

In  this  same  year  appeared  also  his  last  volume  of 
poetry,  "Heartsease  and  Rue."  In  verse  as  in  prose, 
Lowell  was  nearly  always  an  improviser,  pouring  forth  sud- 
denly in  a  single  powerful  jet  all  that  he  had  been  slowly 
bringing  to  a  white  heat  within  him.  He  lacked  the  patient 


f  (eel 


207 


208  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

toil  of  the  artist  who  should  not  only  file  and  polish,  but 
if  need  be  recast  altogether.  He  worked  too  hastily  for 
perfection  of  finish.  The  "  Biglow  Papers  "  have  a  tune- 
fulness and  a  rhythmic  swing  lacking  to  most  of  his  more 
serious  poems.  Some  of  these  later  verses  have  lightness 
and  ease ;  and  they  have  also  their  share  of  the  humorous 
shrewdness  and  the  witty  pith  for  which  the  "Biglow 
Papers  "  are  unsurpassed  in  all  English  literature. 

As  Lowell  drew  near  to  the  allotted  limit  of  threescore 
years  and  ten  he  was  everywhere  recognized  as  one  of  the 
foremost  citizens  of  the  republic,  a  type  of  the  character 
most  needed  in  American  public  life  —  the  man  of  broad 
culture,  having  a  solid  understanding  of  his  fellow-men 
and  a  deep  love  of  his  country.  Probably  the  later  years 
of  his  life  were  made  pleasanter  by  this  atmosphere  of 
appreciation.  At  last  his  health  failed  and  he  died  on 
August  12,  1891,  being  then  seventy-two  years  old. 

Of  the  New  England  group  of  American  authors, 
Lowell,  although  survived  by  both  Whittier  and  Holmes, 
was  the  youngest  except  Parkman.  All  of  these  except 
Hawthorne  and  Parkman  were  poets,  and  the  fame  of 
Longfellow  and  Whittier  may  be  said  to  be  due  wholly  to 
their  poetry.  Lowell,  like  Emerson,  was  a  poet  also,  but 
his  work  in  prose  was  at  least  equal  in  value  to  his  work 
in  verse.  He  was  the  one  great  literary  critic  of  the 
group,  as  Hawthorne  was  the  one  great  story-teller. 

QUESTIONS.  —  What  are  the  points  of  interest  in  Lowell's  life  to 
the  time  of  his  marriage? 

What  was  his  wife's  influence  in  shaping  his  future  career? 

Upon  what  occasion  and  with  what  weapons  did  Lowell  make  his 
first  appearance  in  the  political  arena? 

In  what  striking  literary  work  did  he  show  the  soundness  of  his 
literary  judgment? 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  209 

From  what  two  failings  did  Lowell's  poetry  suffer? 

In  what  work  did  Lowell  present  an  interesting  mixture  of  linguistic 
knowledge  and  poetical  satire? 

What  is  the  character  of  the  volume  in  which  he  included  a  poem 
the  parts  of  which  are  said  to  be  greater  than  the  whole? 

Discuss  the  qualities  displayed  by  Lowell  in  the  collections  of  essays 
published  in  the  '7o's. 

To  what  positions  was  Lowell  appointed  ?  And  how  did  he  serve 
in  these  posts? 

Tell  about  Lowell's  career  after  his  return  to  America. 


NOTE.  —  The  complete  edition  of  Lowell's  works  is  that  published  by  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.  (12  vols.,  $17.50).  The  Cambridge  edition  contains  all  the  poems  in 
a  single  volume  ($2).  "Under  the  Old  Elm,"  etc.,  the  "  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal," 
etc.,  and  "  Books  and  Libraries,"  etc.,  can  be  had  as  separate  numbers  of  the 
Riverside  Literature  series  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  15  cents). 

There  is  a  biography  by  F.  H.  Underwood.  The  "  Letters,"  edited  by  Prof.  C. 
E.  Norton  (Harper  &  Bros.,  2  vols.,  $8)  is  almost  an  autobiography. 

For  criticism,  see  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  (in  "  American  Poets ") ;  Prof.  C.  F. 
Richardson  (in  his  history  of  "  American  Literature  ")  ;  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell  (in 
"  Stelligeri  ")  ;  Mr.  Henry  James  (in  "  Essays  in  London  ")  ;  and  Prof.  George  E. 
Woodberry  (in  the  Century,  November,  1891) . 

AMER.   LIT.  —  14 


XVI     FRANCIS    PARKMAN 

IT  is  not  often  that  a  man  who  forms  a  high  purpose  in 
his  youth  loyally  devotes  his  whole  life  to  its  accomplish- 
ment, and  finally  survives  just  long  enough  to  see  that  it  is 
achieved.  This,  however,  is  what  Francis  Parkman  did. 
When  he  was  still  but  a  boy  in  college  he  resolved  to  tell 
the  story  of  the  long  struggle  between  the  French  and  the 
English  for  the  possession  of  North  America.  To  this 
task  he  gave  himself  his  whole  life  long ;  and  when  the 
work  was  done  at  last,  after  the  unhasting  labor  of  nearly 
half  a  century,  he  was  ready  to  die,  being  then  about 

210 


FRANCIS   PARKMAN  211 

seventy  years  of  age.  And  this  singular  success  was  won 
in  the  face  of  difficulties  which  would  have  discouraged 
any  man  who  had  not  very  unusual  firmness  of  fiber. 

Francis  Parkman  was  born  in  Boston  on  September 
1 6,  1823.  He  belonged  to  what  Dr.  Holmes  called  the 
"  Brahmin  caste  of  New  England,"  that  is  to  say,  his  ances- 
tors had  been  men  of  education  and  character  generation 
after  generation.  The  family  had  endowed  two  professor- 
ships at  Harvard  College. 

In  his  boyhood  Parkman's  health  was  not  robust  ;  and 
he  was  sent  to  live  in  the  country  on  the  edge  of  the  wild 
tract  known  as  Middlesex  Fells.  Here  he  spent  four 
years  in  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  forest.  Then 
after  proper  schooling  he  entered  Harvard  College ;  and  it 
was  when  he  was  a  sophomore  that  he  formed  the  purpose 
of  writing  the  history  of  the  French  and  Indian  War  — 
a  design  which  easily  expanded  later  into  that  of  telling 
the  story  of  the  whole  conflict  between  the  French  and 
the  English  in  North  America.  And  from  the  day  when 
this  project  first  took  shape  in  the  mind  of  the  young  man 
at  college,  everything  he  did  afterwards  was  made  to  con- 
tribute to  its  fulfillment. 

In  one  college  vacation  he  camped  and  canoed  in  the 
backwoods  of  Maine,  and  in  another  he  was  able  to  explore 
all  the  recesses  of  Lake  George  and  Lake  Champlain. 
Even  an  accident  in  the  gymnasium  happened  to  help  on 
his  preparation  for  his  work;  because  he  made  a  voyage  of 
recovery  to  Europe,  and  in  Rome  he  lodged  for  a  while 
in  a  monastery,  thus  getting  to  know  more  about  the 
character  and  the  training  of  the  self-sacrificing  priests 
whose  devotion  to  duty  he  had  afterward  to  chronicle.  On 
his  return  home  he  rejoined  his  class  and  was  graduated 
in  1844.  For  two  years  he  seems  to  have  studied  law 


212  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

with  more  or  less  persistence.  As  it  happened,  his  grand- 
father had  made  a  fortune ;  and  there  was  therefore  no 
immediate  pressure  on  Parkman  to  set  about  earning  his 
own  living. 

Then  he  took  a  long  journey  to  help  fit  himself  for  the 
task  before  him.  He  needed  to  know  the  Indians  and  to 
understand  their  enigmatic  character.  He  wanted  also  to 
study  the  frontiersmen,  whose  ways  differ  but  little  from 
those  of  their  forefathers  three  or  four  generations  ago, 
since  like  conditions  are  sure  to  produce  men  of  like 
characteristics.  In  the  time  of  the  French  and  Indian  War 
the  red  savage  and  the  white  borderer  had  been  both  of 
them  close  to  the  Atlantic  coast ;  but  toward  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  the  advance  of  civilization  had 
pressed  them  back  over  the  Alleghanies  and  across  the 
Mississippi.  It  was  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  that  Park- 
man went  in  1846  with  a  friend,  spending  a  summer  with 
the  Sioux  in  their  camps  among  the  Black  Hills  of  Dakota 
and  on  the  vast  tableland  through  which  the  Platte  River 
twists  itself  languidly. 

He  and  his  friend  lived  with  the  Indians,  sharing  their 
rough  fare  and  studying  their  ways  and  their  customs,  and 
getting  an  insight  into  their  character  not  to  be  had  in  any 
other  manner.  They  underwent  also  the  hardships  of  the 
Indians,  the  toils,  the  privations,  the  exposure  ;  and  Park- 
man was  so  enfeebled  by  these  that  he  never  regained  his 
strength.  While  with  the  Indians  he  was  so  ill  that  he 
had  to  be  lifted  into  his  saddle,  and  it  was  only  because 
his  will  was  firm  enough  to  give  him  the  mastery  even 
over  pain  that  he  was  able  to  get  back  to  civilization. 
And  when  at  last  he  made  his  way  home  he  was  perma- 
nently disabled  ;  and  for  three  years  he  was  unable  to  use 
his  eyes. 


OF  THK 


FRANCIS   PARKMAN 

To  the  friend  who  had  been  with  him  in  these  Western 
wanderings  he  dictated  a  record  of  their  experiences.  This, 
after  being  printed  in  a  magazine,  was  published  in  1849111 
a  volume  known  now  as  the  "  Oregon  Trail."  It  is  one  of 
the  very  best  books  of  outdoor  adventure  ever  written  and 
one  of  the  most  valuable,  for  it  has  preserved  for  us  the 
outward  appearance  of  a  state  of  things  long  since  vanished 
forever.  From  it  the  reader  can  gain  an  understanding  of 
the  red  men  and  of  their  white  neighbors,  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  motives  which  rule  their  conduct,  unobtainable  from 
any  other  single  book.  It  helps  us  to  explain  to  ourselves 
the  unending  series  of  wars  between  the  white  race  and  the 
red,  ever  since  the  men  of  our  stock  first  set  foot  on  the 
soil  which  the  Indian  claimed  for  his  own.  It  enables  us 
to  see  for  ourselves  that  the  Indian  Cooper  presented  in  his 
novels  is  very  like  the  real  Indian,  but  that  the  real 
Indian  had  another  side  to  him  than  the  side  Cooper  chose 
to  depict. 

His  inherited  means  relieved  Parkman  from  the  neces- 
sity of  writing  for  money,  and  it  allowed  him  to  undertake 
a  long  task  not  likely  to  pay  him  a  full  pecuniary  reward 
even  at  the  end.  To  many  a  young  man  with  broken 
health  this  money  might  have  been  merely  a  temptation  to 
luxurious  idleness  ;  to  many  another  it  would  have  afforded 
an  excuse  for  toying  with  literature  as  an  amateur  only  ; 
to  Parkman  it  yielded  the  opportunity  for  strenuous  labor. 
Without  his  inherited  wealth  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible for  Parkman  to  have  accomplished  anything,  since 
he  was  dependent  on  others  for  the  things  which  other 
authors  are  able  to  do  for  themselves. 

For  forty  years  and  more  he  led  what  he  himself  called 
a  life  of  "repressed  activity."  His  eyes  had  failed  him; 
and  he  was  aware  that  his  mind  might  fail  him  also  if  he 


2I4 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


worked  it  hard.  There  were  years  when  he  was  not 
allowed  to  work  at  all.  There  were  years  when  he  was 
able  to  read  only  for  one  minute  at  a  time,  resting  the 
next  minute  and  reading  again  the  third  and  so  on  for 
half  an  hour,  and  when  three  or  four  of  these  broken  half 
hours  were  all  the  reading  he  was  allowed  during  the  day. 
Of  course  he  could  not  write ;  and  all  his  histories  were 
dictated  to  a  member  of  his  family,  who  prepared  them 
for  the  press. 

The  first  book  he  composed  after  the  publication  of  the 

"  Oregon  Trail  "  was 
an  account  of  the 
cleverly  planned  In- 
dian rising  which  in 
1763  came  so  near  to 
-,,  i,  i  undoing  the  English 

||| :  5      ?        victories      over    the 

*  French.     This    "His- 

tory of  the  Conspiracy 
of  Pontiac,"  published 
in  1851,  is  really  a 
supplement  to  the 
main  history  of  the 
struggle  of  the  French 
and  English  for  North 
America.  Perhaps 

Parkman's  Residence,  Boston,  Mass.  . 

rarkman  wrote  it  first 

because  he  was  then  fresh  from  actual  contact  with  the 
Indians,  and  perhaps  because  he  wished  to  try  his  'prentice 
hand  at  a  less  important  book  before  beginning  his  great 
work. 

It  is  almost  inconceivable  that  he  was  able  to  accom- 
plish anything  under  the  difficulties  which  held  him  fast ; 


FRANCIS   PARKMAN  215 

but  he  devised  in  time  a  method  of  work  which  enabled 
him  to  overcome  them  finally.  He  made  it  a  point  always 
to  see  for  himself  the  scene  of  every  event  he  had  to  de- 
scribe ;  and  his  descriptions  of  scenery  are  always  lucid 
and  graphic,  sympathetic  and  picturesque.  He  collected 
all  the  books  bearing  in  any  way  on  the  matter  he  had  in 
hand,  all  histories,  biographies,  journals,  accounts  of  all 
kinds.  He  had  copies  made  for  him  of  all  the  unprinted 
documents,  private  letters,  official  reports,  and  public 
statements,  wherever  these  might  be,  in  the  libraries 
of  America  or  in  the  government  collections  of  France 
and  Great  Britain  or  in  the  personal  archives  of  old  fami- 
lies. He  had  the  aid  of  competent  assistants  who  read  all 
the  documents  aloud  to  him  twice,  once  that  he  might 
form  in  his  own  mind  an  outline  of  the  story,  and  a  sec- 
ond time  that  he  might  secure  the  salient  details.  As 
these  documents  were  read  he  took  notes  or  he  had  them 
taken. 

Thus  slowly,  laboriously,  he  was  able  to  piece  together 
the  story  he  wanted  to  tell.  Probably  the  apparent  disad- 
vantage of  the  method  he  had  to  adopt  was  a  real  advan- 
tage, for  it  forced  him  to  digest 'his  materials  absolutely, 
to  think  out  to  the  end  before  he  started  on  the  beginning, 
to  carry  in  his  head  the  entire  story  complete  in  all  its 
parts  and  proportioned  properly.  But  though  the  result 
repaid  him,  the  limitations  under  which  he  labored  were 
very  severe. 

A  friend  has  described  him  as  always  "waiting  for 
moments  of  health  as  his  greatest  blessing,  glad  to  do  a 
little,  and  always  thankful  when  he  could  do  more. 
He  could  not  go  into  society,  because  it  consumed  his 
strength.  He  could  see  but  few  friends  in  his  own  house, 
for  the  same  reason.  His  own  family  had  to  shield  him 


2l6  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

from  excitements.  It  was  like  fighting  destiny  to  do  any- 
thing, and  yet  month  by  month  the  noiseless  fabric  grew, 
and  book  after  book  was  published,  until  his  plan  was 
completed." 

The  general  title  which  he  gave  finally  to  his  great  work 
was  "  France  and  England  in  North  America."  The  suc- 
cessive seven  books  were  each  complete  in  themselves  and 
yet  all  fitted  together  to  make  a  compact  whole.  They 
were  not  published  in  a  strictly  chronological  order,  be- 
cause as  Parkman  grew  in  years  he  wished  at  least  to 
leave  behind  him  the  most  important  divisions  of  the 
work ;  but  he  lived  to  pick  up  all  the  parts  passed 
over. 

The  first  to  appear  was  the  volume  on  the  "  Pioneers  of 
France  in  the  New  World,"  which  is  the  opening  of  the 
series  and  which  was  published  in  1865.  In  1867  came 
the  second  book,  on  the  "Jesuits  in  North  America  in  the 
Seventeenth  Century,"  a  narrative  of  hergic  and  fruitless 
endeavor,  followed  two  years  later  by  "  La  Salle ;  or  the 
Discovery  of  the  Great  West."  Then  there  was  an  inter- 
val of  five  years  before  the  book  on  the  "Old  Regime  in 
Canada"  appeared  in  1874.  Three  years  later  came 
"Count  Frontenac  and  New  France  under  Louis  XIV." 
The  two  books  which  conclude  the  series,  and  which  were 
published  in  reverse  order,  are  "A  Half  Century  of  Con- 
flict," issued  in  1892,  and  "  Montcalm  and  Wolfe,"  issued 
in  1884. 

No  finer  subject  could  any  historian  have  than  this  con- 
flict of  France  and  England  for  the  possession  of  North 
America  ;  and  no  finer  history  has  been  written  by  any  man 
of  our  time.  It  has  the  twofold  merit  that  it  can  be  read 
with  pleasure  and  it  can  be  relied  on  with  confidence. 
Parkman  first  made  himself  master  of  all  the  facts  and  then 


Z/ 


/i^y      Sl4^*-tt*.  <« 

^   e/tf^^zz-^.^    ^ 


^     -'    7& 


9 

~37&        A^4 


<v^^. 

t*+S~   jf  ^*>~i/~ 

C~~     /tsf-         (^^, 


s~ 


•f-Zi^,^ 


t^f^l^.f/'  ^-^-V. 

^     / 

C^-        ^U—t^u^/*       ^ 


^J^v^ 


217 


218  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

he  selected  those  which  were  essential  and  set  them  forth 
in  most  interesting  fashion. 

In  his  reliance  on  research  he  was  rigidly  scientific ;  in 
his  presentation  of  the  results  of  his  research  he  was  un- 
failingly artistic.  He  sought  truth  always,  and  having 
found  it  he  tried  to  present  it  as  beauty  also.  For  every 
fact,  every  allusion,  every  picturesque  touch,  he  could  give 
his  authority ;  but  he  did  not  heap  up  his  investigations 
crudely  and  make  his  readers  form  impressions  of  their 
own.  He  showed  to  the  world  the  carved  statue  perfect 
in  its  strength  and  in  its  grace  ;  he  did  not  draw  attention 
to  the  models  he  used,  to  the  rough  block  he  had  hewn, 
or  to  the  scattered  chips  of  the  workshop. 

Parkman  was  happily  married  in  1852;  but  he  lost  his 
wife  in  1858,  after  which  he  lived  with  his  sister  in  Boston, 
either  in  the  center  of  the  city  or  in  its  outskirts  on  the 
shore  of  Jamaica  Pond.  In  this  latter  place  he  was  able  to 
be  outdoors  and  to  become  expert  as  a  plant-grower,  even 
originating  new  species.  He  wrote  a  book  about  roses  ; 
and  for  a  year  or  two  he  was  professor  of  horticulture  at 
Harvard.  He  used  to  say  that  his  garden  had  saved  his 
life. 

After  the  completion  of  his  history  in  1892  he  began  at 
once  the  revision  of  the  earliest  volumes  in  the  light  of  his 
later  labors.  In  this  pleasant  task  he  was  engaged  when 
he  died  on  September  8,  1893.  His  work  was  done  and 
he  could  die  happy. 

After  his  death  Holmes  summed  up  his  labors  in  a  poem 
of  which  these  stanzas  may  be  quoted  here  :  — 

He  told  the  red  man's  story  ;  far  and  wide 

He  searched  the  unwritten  records  of  his  race ; 

He  sat  a  listener  at  the  Sachem's  side, 

He  tracked  the  hunter  through  his  wildwood  chase. 


FRANCIS   PARKMAN  219 

High  o'er  his  head  the  soaring  eagle  screamed ; 

The  wolfs  long  howl  rang  nightly  ;  through  the  vale 
Tramped  the  lone  bear ;  the  panther's  eyeballs  gleamed ; 

The  bison's  gallop  thundered  on  the  gale. 

Soon  o'er  the  horizon  rose  the  cloud  of  strife  — 
Two  proud,  strong  nations  battling  for  the  prize  — 

Which  swarming  host  should  mold  a  nation's  life, 
Which  royal  banner  flout  the  western  skies. 

Long  raged  the  conflict ;  on  the  crimson  sod 

Native  and  alien  joined  their  hosts  in  vain; 
The  lilies  withered  where  the  Lion  trod, 

Till  Peace  lay  panting  on  the  ravaged  plain. 


QUESTIONS.  —  What  is  there  remarkable  about  the  life  and  works  of 
Parkman  ? 

How  was  the  usual  history  of  a  well-born  Boston  boy  varied  in  his 
case? 

Describe  the  events  of  the  long  journey  which  Parkman  took  in  order 
to  help  fit  himself  for  the  task  which  he  had  already  set  before  him. 

Compare  the  subject  of  Parkman's  first  book,  as  it  was  presented  by 
him,  with  the  same  theme  as  it  was  pictured  by  an  earlier  American 
novelist. 

Describe  the  methods  by  which  alone  Parkman  was  enabled  to  com- 
plete his  great  undertaking. 

Describe  the  work  that  gives  to  Parkman  a  valid  claim  to  be  ranked 
with  the  foremost  historians  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

How  was  his  work  summed  up  by  Holmes? 

NOTE.  —  The  complete  edition  of  Parkman's  works  is  that  published  by  Little, 
Brown  &  Co.  (12  vols.,  $18).  They  issued  also  a  cheap  edition  of  the  "Oregon 
Trail"  ($1). 

Mr.  Charles  H.  Farnham  has  written  Parkman's  biography  (Little,  Brown  &  Co., 
$2.50),  and  Prof.  John  Fiske  is  preparing  a  Life  for  the  American  Men  of  Letters 
series.  For  a  fragment  of  autobiography  see  the  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine  for 
May,  1895. 

For  criticism,  see  Lowell  and  Mr.  Edward  Eggleston  (in  the  Century  for  Novem- 
ber, 1892). 


XVII     OTHER    WRITERS 

THE  authors  who  have  been  considered,  one  by  one,  in 
the  preceding  chapters  are  not  the  only  American  men  of 
letters  whose  writings  are  still  read  ;  but  they  are  the 
writers  with  whose  works  the  youth  of  the  United  States 
ought  soonest  to  become  acquainted.  There  were  always 
other  literators  laboring  side  by  side  with  these  more 
distinguished  authors,  overshadowed  by  them  and  yet 
deserving  of  remembrance.  There  were  also  men  of 
prominence  in  other  callings  than  literature,  who  took  up 
the  pen  now  and  again  to  advance  a  cause  in  which  they 
were  interested. 

Not  a  few  of  the  early  state  papers  of  our  country 
have  literary  merit  in  a  high  degree.  The  Declaration 
of  Independence,  for  example,  written  by  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son (1743-1826),  afterwards  President  of  the  United 
States,  combines  most  skillfully  brilliant  rhetoric  and  com- 
pact logic ;  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
the  result  of  the  united  wisdom  of  the  foremost  states- 
men of  the  day,  owes  much  of  its  clearness  and  its  force 
to  Gouverneur  Morris  (1752-1816),  who  made  the  final 
revision  of  its  vigorous  English. 

In  arousing  the  public  spirit  which  enabled  us  to  achieve 
our  independence  no  single  effort  was  perhaps  more  effec- 
tive than  an  appeal  called  "  Common  Sense,"  written  by 
Thomas  Paine  (1737-1809)  and  published  in  1776;  and 
the  author  followed  it  up  with  the  successive  issues 
of  a  periodical,  the  Crisis,  which  were  also  useful  to  the 
patriotic  cause. 

220 


OTHER   WRITERS 


221 


Alexander  Hamilton 


After  the  revolution  was  accomplished  and  after  the 
necessity  was  felt  for  a  strong  and  yet  flexible  form  of 
government,  the  proposed  constitution  might  not  have 
been  adopted  if  it  had  not  been  ex- 
plained and  defended  by  a  series  of 
papers  published  from  time  to  time 
in  1787-88  under  the  general  title  of 
the  Federalist.  These  are,  perhaps, 
the  ablest  political  essays  in  the  Eng- 
lish language ;  and  they  are  like  some 
of  the  great  speeches  of  Burke,  in 
that  they  were  intended  to  effect  an 
immediate  purpose  only  and  yet  have 
served  ever  since  as  a  perpetual  store- 
house of  political  wisdom.  They  were  written  by  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  (1757-1804),  John  Jay  (1745-1829),  and 

James  Madison  (1751-1836). 
After  the  adoption  of  the  con- 
stitution Hamilton  became  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  under 
Washington,  whom  he  after- 
wards aided  in  preparing  the 
"  Farewell  Address."  Jay  was 
-  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court ;  and  Madison 
was  the  fourth  President  of  the 
United  States. 

Two  other  American  states- 
men cannot  be  omitted  from 
any  survey  of  American  literature,  however  brief.  The 
first  of  these  is  Daniel  Webster  (1782-1852),  the  most 
famous  of  American  public  speakers,  and  perhaps  the  only 
American  who  could  challenge  comparison  with  the  great 


Daniel  Webster 


222  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

orators  of  Europe.  One  idea  runs  through  all  Webster's 
speeches  —  the  greatness  and  the  glory  of  this  American 
Union  and  the  necessity  of  preserving  it  forever.  This  is 
really  the  theme  of  his  two  solemn  and  stately  orations  at 
Bunker  Hill,  one  delivered  when  the  foundation  stone  of 
the  monument  was  laid  in  1825,  and  the  other  when  the 
monument  was  completed  in  1843. 

The  second   of  the  American  statesmen  holding  high 
rank   as  a  man  of   letters  was  Abraham   Lincoln   (1809- 
1865),  whose  later  state  papers  are  models,  not  only  in 
insight  and  in  tact  but  in  expression  also.     His  master- 
piece is  the  short  speech  delivered  on  the  battlefield   of 
Gettysburg  at  the  dedication  of  the  national  cemetery  in 
November,  1863.     Lofty  in  thought,  deep  in  feeling,  sim- 
ple in  language,  this  speech  has  a  Greek  perfection  of  form. 
It  is  but  a  short  step  nov  to  take  up  the  men  who  have 
written  history  in  America,  after  dealing  thus  briefly  with 
those  who  helped  to  maKe  history  here.      In   1834  Jared 
Sparks  (1789-1866)  wrote  a  life  of  Wash- 
ington and  edited  the  letters  and  other 
papers   of   our   first    President ;   and    he 
afterward    did   a   like    service   for   other 
worthies     of    the    Revolutionary  period. 
He  preserved  for  us  much  valuable  mate- 
rial which    might    otherwise    have   been 
lost,  but  he   liked   to    show    his    heroes 
always  in  full  dress,  and  he  omitted  facts 
and  altered  texts  the  better  to  sustain  the 
dignity  of.history  as  he  understood  it. 
In  the  same  year  that  Sparks  published  the  first  volume 
of  his  "  Washington,"  George  Bancroft  (1800-1891)  pub- 
lished the  first  volume  of    his  massive  "History  of  the 
United  States,"  a  monument  of  honorable  labor  and  intel- 


OTHER   WRITERS  22$ 

lectual  effort,  the  tenth  and  last  volume  of  which  was  not 
completed  until  1874 — forty  years  after  the  book  had 
begun  to  appear.  Bancroft  also  took  part  in  public  affairs, 
and  when  Secretary  of  the  Navy  he  established  the  Naval 
Academy  now  at  Annapolis ;  when  collector  of  the  port  of 
Boston  he  gave  an  appointment  to  Hawthorne.  He  was 
also  minister  to  Great  Britain  in  1846,  and  twenty  years 
later  he  was  minister  to  Germany. 

Another  historian,  John  Lothrop  Motley  (1814-1877), 
was  our  minister  to  Austria  at  one  time  and  afterward  to 
Great  Britain.  He  chose  for  the  subject  of  his  studies 
the  rise  of  the  brave  little  Dutch  republic  from  which  the 
people  of  the  United  States  have  derived  so  many  of  their 
institutions.  The  first  book  he  devoted  to  this  thrilling 
theme  was  published  in  1854.  After  his  death  his  life  was 
written  by  his  friend,  Dr.  Holmes. 

An  even  more  interesting  period  of  history  was  selected 
by  William  Hickling  Prescott  (1796- 
1859),  wno  examined  the  condition  of 
Spain  at  the  time  Columbus  set  forth 
to  discover  a  new  world.  This  book 
on  "  Ferdinand  and  Isabella "  was 
published  in  1837  and  it  was  followed 
within  ten  years  by  books  on  the 
Spanish  "Conquest  of  Mexico"  and 
"  Conquest  of  Peru,"  two  of  the 
most  marvelous  true  stories  to  be 
found  anywhere  in  the  annals  of  wflltam  H  prescott 
mankind. 

A  friend  of  Motley's  and  the  editor  of  his  letters  was 
George  William  Curtis  (1824-1892),  who  was  perhaps  after 
Lowell  the  most  charming  of  American  essayists.  Curtis 
wrote  a  novel  or  two  and  a  social  satire ;  he  was  for  years 


224  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

a  popular  lecturer ;  but  his  strength  is  best  revealed  in  the 
many  addresses  he  delivered,  in  which  he  upheld  a  lofty 
ideal  of  American  citizenship.  Three  other  essayists  may 
also  be  mentioned  here,  George  Ripley  (1802-1880),  who 
took  part  in  the  Brook  Farm  experiment  with  Hawthorne 
and  Curtis,  and  who  did  much  to  further  scholarship  in  the 
United  States;  E.  P.  Whipple  (1819-1886),  who  was  a 
Boston  lecturer  and  critic ;  and  Richard  Grant  White 
(1821-1885),  who  edited  Shakspere's  works  and  who  wrote 
frequently  about  the  misuse  of  words. 

Critics  and  essayists  also  were  the  two  poets  N.  P. 
Willis  and  Bayard  Taylor.  Willis 
(1806-1867)  was  a  journalist,  who 
when  he  was  barely  out  of  boyhood 
wrote  a  series  of  blank  verse  poems 
on  scriptural  themes,  which  were  re- 
ceived at  once  with  high  praise.  Bay- 
ard Taylor  was  also  a  journalist,  who 
began  his  literary  career  by  letters  of 
travel.  He  wished  always  to  be  a  poet, 
but  perhaps  his  most  valuable  poetic 
Ba  ard  Ta  lor  effort  was  his  metrical  translation  of 

Goethe's  "Faust." 

J.  G.  Sixe  (1816-1887)  was  a  poet  who  wrote  society 
verse  of  not  a  little  sparkle,  although  not  equal  to  the  best 
in  that  kind  by  Halleck  and  by  Holmes.  Two  Southern 
poets  must  not  be  passed  over,  Henry  Timrod  (1829-1867) 
and  Sidney  Lanier  (1842-1881),  both  of  whom  died  before 
their  allotted  time,  partly  because  of  the  weakness  brought 
on  by  exposure  while  they  were  fighting  for  the  lost  cause. 
Greater  than  any  of  these  was  Walt  Whitman  (1819- 
1892),  who  is  even  called  by  some  foreign  critics  the  great- 
est of  all  American  poets.  Whitman  was  an  intense  Amer- 


OTHER   WRITERS 


225 


Walt  Whitman 


ican,  renouncing  all  allegiance  to  the  past  and  looking  to 

the  future  with  splendid  confidence.     His  stalwart  verse 

was  irregular,    but    often  it  was 

beautifully  rhythmic.     No  one  of 

the    many   tributes    to    Lincoln, 

not  even  Lowell's  noble  eulogy, 

is    more    deeply    charged    with 

exalted  feeling   than  Whitman's 

"O  Captain,  My  Captain." 

Curtis  and  Taylor  and  Willis 
were  all  writers  of  fiction,  al- 
though no  one  of  them  made  his 
reputation  by  a  novel.  The 
earliest  American  romancer  was 
Charles  Brockden  Brown  (1771- 
1810),  a  Philadelphian  whose 
strange  and  gloomy  tales,  pub- 
lished at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth,  are  powerful,  if  unpleasant. 

Two  Southern  novelists  followed  Cooper  in  dealing  with 
the  life  of  their  own  neighborhood.  One  was  John  Pendle- 
ton  Kennedy  (1795-1870),  who  wrote  two  Virginia  stories, 
"  Swallow  Barn,"  published  in  1832,  and  "Horse-Shoe  Rob- 
inson," published  in  1835.  The  other  was  William  Gilmore 
Simms  (1806-1870),  who  applied  Cooper's  method  to  South- 
ern scenes  and  characters ;  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of 
the  many  tales  due  to  his  facile  pen  is  the  "  Yemassee," 
published  in  1835. 

Although  not  to  be  classed  as  fiction,  two  books  published 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  have  all  the  fas- 
cination of  Cooper's  sea  stories.  One  of  these  is  the 
"Typee"  of  Herman  Melville  (1819-1891),  in  which  the 
author  described  the  strange  adventures  of  a  sailor  in  the 

AMER.  LIT.  —  15 


226  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

South  Seas  who  was  a  captive  of  the  natives  on  one  of  the 
Marquesas  Islands.  The  other  of  these  romantic  narra- 
tives of  the  ocean  is  the  "  Two  Years  before  the  Mast "  of 
Richard  H.  Dana  (1815-1882),  which  has  been  called  the 
most  truthful  account  of  the  everyday  life  of  the  American 
sailor  that  has  ever  been  written.  Bryant  declared  it  to  be 
"as  good  as  '  Robinson  Crusoe.' ' 

Certain  of  the  woman  writers  of  the  United  States  have 
attained  distinction  as  poets  and  as  novelists.  The  earliest 
of  them  was  Mrs.  Rowson  (1762-1824),  who  wrote  the 
pathetic  tale  of  "  Charlotte  Temple " ;  and  among  the 
latest  were  Mrs.  Jackson  (1831-1885)  and  Miss  Woolson 
(1848-1894).  Mrs.  Jackson  wrote  many  books  in  prose 
and  verse,  but  she  is  best  known  by  her  moving  appeal  for 
the  Indian  —  an  appeal  cast  in  the  form  of  a  story  and 
called  "Ramona."  Miss  Woolson  was  a  grand-niece  of 
Cooper's  and  she  had  not  a  little  of  his  skill  in  setting 
down  on  paper  the  impression  of  natural  scenery  ;  her  most 
artistic  books  are,  perhaps,  the  two  volumes  of  short  stories, 
in  one  of  which  she  studied  life  in  the  South,  and  in  the 
other  of  which  she  depicted  the  people  who  dwell  on  the 
shores  of  the  great  lakes. 

Margaret  Fuller  (1810-1850)  was  what  very  few  women 
have  ever  trained  themselves  to  be ;  she  was  a  critic,  hav- 
ing high  ideals  both  of  life  and  of  literature.  She  was  a 
friend  of  Emerson's  and  helped  to  edit  the  Dial;  and  she 
was  a  visitor  to  Brook  Farm,  while  Hawthorne  and  Curtis 
and  Ripley  were  there.  She  died  in  her  prime,  being 
shipwrecked  off  Fire  Island  as  she  was  returning  from 
Europe  with  her  baby  and  her  husband,  an  Italian  named 
Ossoli. 

A  woman  was  also  the  author  of  the  American  book 
which  has  had  the  widest  circulation  both  at  home  and 


OTHER  WRITERS  227 

abroad,  both  in  the  English  and  in  translations  into  foreign 
languages.     Perhaps  to-day  on   the  continent  of    Europe 
"Uncle     Tom's     Cabin"    is    better 
known  than  any  other  single  book  of 
American  authorship.      It  was  writ- 
ten by  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
who  was  born  in  Connecticut  in  1812. 
As  a  girl  she  taught  school  in  Cin- 
cinnati and  had  many  opportunities 
of  studying  Southern  life.     She  mar- 
ried Mr.  Stowe  in   1836  and  moved 
with  him  to  Maine  in   1850,  when  he 
was  called  to  a  professorship  at  Bow-       Harriet  Beecher  stowe 
doin  —  the  college  where  Hawthorne  and  Longfellow  had 
graduated.      She  had  a  deep  feeling  against  slavery  and 
she  thought  that  everybody  would  agree  with  her  if  only 
the  results  of  the  evil  system  were  understood. 

What  she  tried  to  do  in  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  was  not 
to  attack  slavery  but  rather  to  tell  the  truth  about  it,  so 
that  others  would  see  it  as  she  saw  it.  She  sought  to  show 
the  good  side  as  well  as  the  bad  side ;  she  described  the 
good  slave  owner  and  the  bad  slave  owner ;  she  depicted 
the  good  slave  and  the  bad  slave.  She  was  so  free  from 
any  hatred  of  the  slave  owner  himself  that  the  pleasantest 
character  in  the  book  is  St.  Clair,  the  charming  Southern 
gentleman,  while  the  coarsest  figure  of  all  is  the  brutal 
Northern  slave  driver  Legree.  It  was  the  system  she 
detested  and  not  the  men  and  women  who  might  be  in- 
volved in  it.  This  wish  to  be  truthful  it  is  which  gives  its 
abiding  value  to  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  and  which  has  ob- 
tained for  it  a  life  far  longer  than  that  of  other  "novels 
with  a  purpose,"  wherein  there  is  no  attempt  to  set  down 
the  facts  as  they  are  and  let  these  speak  for  themselves. 


228  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

QUESTIONS.  —  Mention  three  writers  who  aided  powerfully  with  their 
pens  the  movement  for  the  independence  of  the  English  colonies  in  the 
New  World. 

Who  were  the  three  public  men  who  did  equal  service  in  shaping 
public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  formation  of  a  strong  national  govern- 
ment? 

What  two  other  public  men,  in  later  years,  insisted  mightily,  by  word 
and  by  deed,  upon  the  necessity  of  preserving  the  American  Union 
forever? 

Describe  some  of  the  work  of  three  famous  American  historians. 

Mention  two  American  essayists  who  were  associated  with  Haw- 
thorne in  the  Brook  Farm  experiment. 

Why  are  the  names  of  Willis  and  Taylor  remembered  ? 

What  do  you  know  about  Walt  Whitman  ? 

What  part  has  the  South  taken  in  the  production  of  American  liter- 
ature ? 

What  did  Margaret  Fuller  do  ? 

Discuss  the  life  and  work  of  the  most  distinguished  authoress  as  yet 
produced  by  the  Western  World. 

NOTE.  —  Biographies  of  Jefferson,  Morris,  Hamilton,  Jay,  Madison,  Webster, 
and  Lincoln  will  be  found  in  the  American  Statesmen  series. 

Biographies  of  Curtis,  Ripley,  Motley,  Willis,  Margaret  Fuller,  Bayard  Taylor, 
and  Simms  will  be  found  in  the  American  Men  of  Letters  series. 

For  a  Southern  criticism  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  story,  see  the  Sewanee  Review  for 
November,  1893. 


XVIII     THE    END    OF    THE    NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 

THE  death  of  Holmes  in  the  fall  of  1894,  following  fast 
upon  the  deaths  of  Whittier  and  of  Parkman  and  of  Lowell, 
marked  the  close  of  an  epoch.  The  leaders  of  the  great 
New  England  group  of  authors  had  gone ;  and  the  period 
of  American  literature  which  they  had  made  illustrious 
was  completed.  In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  literary  center  of  the  United  States  had  been  in  New 
York,  where  were  Irving  and  Cooper,  Bryant,  Halleck, 
and  Drake.  Toward  the  middle  of  the  century  the  literary 
center  had  shifted  to  Boston,  in  which  city  or  in  its  imme- 
diate vicinity  were  the  homes  of  Emerson,  Longfellow, 
Whittier,  Holmes,  Parkman,  Lowell,  and  Thoreau.  When 
these  had  departed  they  left  no  successors  there  of  the  same 
relative  influence.  The  nation  has  been  spreading  so  fast 
and  the  men  of  letters  are  so  scattered,  that  there  is  in  the 
last  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  no  single  group  of 
authors  whose  position  at  the  head  of  American  literature 
is  beyond  .question. 

Although  there  have  never  been  so  many  authors  as 
there  are  to-day,  and  although  the  average  of  literary  skill 
is  probably  higher  than  ever  before,  there  is  now  no  tower- 
ing figure  and  no  dominating  personality.  And  those  who 
are  at  the  head  of  American  literature  at  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century  are  not  men  of  the  same  general  type 
as  the  greatly-gifted  New  Englanders  whom  they  suc- 
ceeded; and  their  aims  and  their  ideals  are  not  the  same. 
They  have  not  the  binding  tie  of  birth  in  the  same  part  of 
the  country,  for  they  come  from  the  South  and  from  the 

229 


230  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

West  as  well  as  from  the  East.  In  so  far  as  the  nation 
has  any  literary  center,  this  must  be  New  York  again, 
although  there  is  no  common  bond  of  union  among  the 
many  prominent  authors  living  in  the  metropolis. 

After  the  death  of  Lowell  and  Whittier  and  Holmes 
there  was  left  no  poet  having,  as  they  all  three  had,  at 
once  a  high  standing  and  a  wide  popularity.  Poets  there 
are  of  lofty  aspiration  and  of  delicate  skill.  Other  writ- 
ers of  verse  there  are  also  who  rimed  adroitly  the  com- 
mon things  of  life,  using  the  common  speech  of  the  peo- 
ple of  their  own  State.  The  praise  of  those  best  qualified 
to  judge  has  been  given  rather  to  the  poets  of  the  first  of 
these  groups,  while  it  is  the  verses  of  the  writers  of  the 
second  group  which  have  been  most  warmly  welcomed  by 
the  people  as  a  whole. 

Here  we  find  the  most  marked  difference  between  the 
poetry  of  the  middle  of  the  century  and  that  of  the  end. 
The  best  poems  of  Longfellow  and  Whittier  delighted  all 
classes  of  Americans ;  they  pleased  the  plain  people  as 
well  as  the  more  highly  cultivated.  "  Evangeline "  and 
"Snow-Bound"  charmed  alike  the  farmhand  and  the  col- 
lege professor.  But  no  long  poem  published  in  the  last 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  achieved  this  double 
distinction.  Of  course  such  a  poem  may  appear  at  any 
moment,  but  with  the  increasing  vogue  of  fiction,  poetry 
seems  less  preeminent  than  it  was  in  the  past.  Fifty 
years  ago  nearly  all  the  writers  who  stood  at  the  head  of 
American  literature  were  poets.  Of  the  writers  who 
stand  at  the  head  of  American  literature  to-day  less  than 
half  are  poets. 

There  is  no  dearth  of  poetry ;  indeed,  it  has  never  been 
so  abundant  in  America  as  it  is  to-day.  Nor  is  there  any 
falling  off  in  its  quality,  for  never  has  the  accomplishment 


THE   END   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY      231 

of  verse  been  possessed  by  more  writers.  But  perhaps 
fame  is  not  now  won  so  swiftly  by  a  beautiful  lyric  as  it 
is  by  a  striking  short  story.  Therefore  the  ambitious 
young  author  is  less  tempted  to  confine  himself  to  verse 
than  he  was  half  a  century  ago.  Fiction  is  the  form  of 
literature  in  which  many  of  the  leading  American  authors 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  find  their  natural 
medium  of  expression.  Both  the  novel  and  the  short 
story  flourish  now  as  never  before. 

Two  of  the  more  recent  developments  of  fiction  are 
especially  noteworthy.  The  first  of  these  is  what  has 
been  called  the  "international  novel."  This  name  has 
been  given  to  a  study  of  American  character  seen  against 
a  foreign  background.  To  bring  out  the  difference  be- 
tween the  American  and  the  European — and  more  par- 
ticularly the  profound  difference  between  the  American 
and  the  Englishman  —  this  has  been  the  object  of  not 
a  few  novels  written  by  American  authors.  By  making 
this  contrast  these  novelists  performed  a  most  useful  ser- 
vice, for  they  helped  us  to  see  our- 
selves as  others  see  us.  They  forced 
us  to  look  at  ourselves  with  alien 
eyes.  They  compelled  us  to  recog- 
nize some  of  our  own  peculiarities  to 
which  we  had  chosen  to  be  blind. 

Closely  akin  in  method  to  the  in- 
ternational novels  have  been  certain 
novels  of  city  life.  In  these  stories 
the  complex  conditions  of  society  in 

AT          -\r      i      •      T»  i   •       f-*^  •  William  D.  Howells 

New  York,  in  Boston,  and  in  Chicago 

have  been  studied  with  conscientious  care.  Certain  aspects 
of  the  kaleidoscopic  cosmopolitanism  of  the  great  cities  of 
the  East  have  been  seized  by  the  novelist  and  by  him  so 


232  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

presented  in  his  stories  that  the  dweller  on  the  lonely  farm 
in  the  distant  West  is  enabled  to  comprehend  better  than 
before  the  conditions  of  life  amid  the  shifting  scenes  of 
the  mighty  city.  This,  indeed,  is  the  greatest  service  the 
art  of  fiction  can  render  to  mankind ;  it  helps  us  to  under- 
stand our  fellow-man  ;  it  explains  us  to  ourselves. 

To  perform  this  service  adequately,  the  aim  of  the 
novelist  must  be  to  tell  the  truth  about 
life  as  he  sees  it.  The  aim  of  the 
greatest  writers  of  fiction  has  not  been 
merely  to  amuse  by  fanciful  and  fantas- 
tic tales,  but  to  interpret  sympatheti- 
cally the  life  they  themselves  best  knew. 
This  is  what  has  been  done  with  re- 
markable success  by  the  authors  who 
have  taken  part  in  the  second  of  the 
two  recent  and  noteworthy  develop- 
Edmund  c.  stedman  ments  of  American  fiction. 

Quite  as  interesting  as  the  "international  novel"  is 
the  "local  short  story."  By  this  is  meant  the  story  in 
which  we  find  set  forth  the  people  and  the  scenery  and 
the  dialect  of  a  particular  locality  —  in  which  there  is 
a  strong  local  flavor  and  a  free  use  of  local  color.  "Rip  Van 
Winkle"  is  the  first  tale  of  this  type,  in  which  there  is 
a  sympathetic  study  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  a 
special  portion  of  our  vast  and  mingled  population. 

The  example  set  by  Irving  has  been  followed  by  writers 
who  happened  to  have  special  knowledge  of  this  or  that 
portion  of  the  country,  until  there  is  now  hardly  a  corner 
of  the  United  States  which  has  not  served  as  the  scene 
of  a  story  of  some  sort.  Many  of  these  local  fictions 
are  short  stories,  but  some  of  them  are  long  novels.  As 
was  natural,  New  England  is  the  portion  which  has 


THE   END   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY      233 


been  most  carefully  explored.  But  of  late  the  young  writers 
of  the  South  and  of  the  West  have  been  almost  more  suc- 
cessful in  this  department  of  literature 
than  the  writers  of  New  England  and  of 
New  York.  In  story  and  in  sketch  we 
have  had  made  known  to  us  the  Southern 
gentleman  of  the  old  school,  the  old  negro 
body-servant,  the  fieldhand,  and  the  poor 
white.  In  like  manner  we  have  had  faith- 
fully observed  and  honestly  presented  to 
us  the  more  marked  types  of  Western 
character.  What  gives  its  real  value  to 
these  studies  of  life  in  the  South  and  in 
the  West  is  that  they  are  studies  of  life,  that  they  have 
the  note  of  sincerity  and  of  reality,  that  they  are  not  vain 
imaginings  merely,  but  the  result  of  an  earnest  effort 
to  see  life  as  it  is  and  to  tell  the  truth  about  it  — the  whole 

truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 
Many  of  these  Southern  and 
Western  tales,  even  more  than 
the  New  York  and  New  England 
tales  on  which  they  are  modeled, 
abound  in  humor,  which  some- 
times refines  itself  into  delicate 
character  -  drawing,  and  which 
sometimes  breaks  out  into  more 
hearty  fun.  Franklin  was  perhaps 
the  earliest  of  American  humor- 
ists ;  after  him  came  Irving,  and 
then  Lowell ;  and  they  have  to-day  many  followers  not  un- 
worthy of  them. 

The  earlier  American  historians,  Prescott  and   Motley 
and   Parkman,   have   also    many  not    unworthy  followers, 


Samuel  Clemens  ("  Mark  Twain  ") 


234  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

working  to-day  as  loyally  as  did  their  great  predecessors. 
At  no  time  since  the  United  States  became  an  independ- 
ent nation  has  there  been  greater  interest  in  historical 
study.  At  no  time  have  more  able  writers  been  devoting 
themselves  to  the  history  of  our  own  country. 

Although  we  have  now  no  essayist  of  the  stimulating 
force  of  Emerson,  and  no  critic  with  the  insight  and  the 
equipment  of  Lowell,  yet  there  is  no  lack  of  delightful 
essayists  and  of  accomplished  critics.  Indeed,  the  gen- 
eral level  of  American  criticism  has  been  immensely  raised 
since  the  days  of  Poe.  American  critics  are  far  more  self- 
reliant  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  than  they 
were  at  the  beginning.  They  have  lost  the  colonial 
attitude,  for  they  no  longer  look  for  light  across  the 
Atlantic  to  England  only.  They  know  now  that  Ameri- 
can literature  has  to  grow  in  its  own  way  and  of  its  own 
accord.  Yet  they  are  not  so  narrow  as  they  were,  and 
they  are  ready  to  apply  far  higher  standards.  An  Ameri- 
can poet  or  novelist  or  historian  is  not  now  either  unduly 
praised  or  unduly  condemned  merely  because  he  is  an 
American.  He  is  judged  on  his  own  merits,  and  he  is 
compared  with  the  leading  contemporary  writers  of  Eng- 
land and  of  France,  of  Germany,  of  Italy,  and  of  Spain. 
It  is  by  the  loftiest  standards  of  the  rest  of  the  world  that 
American  literature  must  hereafter  be  measured. 

QUESTIONS.  —  Discuss  the  shifting  of  the  literary  center  in  the  United 
States  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  century. 

What  marked  difference  is  to  be  found  between  the  poetry  of  the 
middle  of  the  century  and  that  of  the  end  ? 

What  is  meant  by  the  "international  novel"? 

What  is  meant  by  the  "local  short  story"? 

What  is  it  that  now  gives  abiding  value  to  the  best  American  fiction? 

What  is  the  present  state  of  American  literature  in  the  departments 
of  history  and  criticism  ? 


A    BRIEF   CHRONOLOGY 


OF 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


.   .  John  Smith  explored  the  Chesapeake  Bay. 
Landing  at  Jamestown,  April  26. 

.   .  John  Smith  :  "  A  True  Relation  of  Such  Occurrences  and 

Accidents  of  Note  as  hath  Happened  in  Virginia." 
Quebec  founded. 

1613  .  .  .  Anne  Bradstreet  born. 

1616  .  .  .  John  Smith  :  "A  Description  of  New  England." 

1620  .  .   .  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims. 

1624  .  .   .  John  Smith  (with  others)  :  "The  General  History  of  Vir- 
ginia, New  England,  and  the  Summer  Isles." 

^1636  .  .  .  Harvard  College  founded. 

1639  .  .  .  Increase  Mather  born. 

1640  .  .  .  Richard  Mather,  John  Eliot,  and  other  Chief  Divines  in 

the  Country  :  "  The  Whole  Book  of  Psalms  Faithfully 
Translated  into  English  Metre."  (The  Bay  Psalm 
Book.) 

1650  .  .  .  Anne   Bradstreet:  "The  Tenth  Muse  lately  Sprung  up  in 
America." 

1661   .  .  .  John  Eliot:  Translation  of  the  New  Testament  into  Algon- 
quin. 

1663  .  .  .  Cotton  Mather  born. 
1672  .  .  .  Anne  Bradstreet  died. 

1689  .  o  .  Cotton    Mather:    "Memorable    Providences    relating    to 
Witchcrafts  and  Possessions." 
235 


236  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

1691  .  .  .  Joshua  Scottow :  "  The  New  England  Primer." 

1700  .  .  .  Yale  College  founded. 

-^-1702  .  .  .  Cotton  Mather :  "Magnalia  Christi  Americana.'" 

1703  .  .  .  Jonathan  Edwards  born. 

1704  .  .  .   The  Boston  News-Letter  established. 
1706  .  .  .  Benjamin  Franklin  born. 

1710  .   .   .  Cotton  Mather:    "  Bonifacius ;  an   Essay  upon   the   Good 
that  is  to  be  Devised  and  Designed." 

1719  .  .  .   The  Boston  Gazette  established. 

1721   .  .  .  James  Franklin :   The  New  England  Cour ant. 

1723  .  .  .  Increase  Mather  died. 

1728  .  .  .  Cotton  Mather  died. 

JTI732  .  .  .  Franklin:  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanack." 

1737  .  .  .  Thomas  Paine  born. 

1743  .  .  .  Thomas  Jefferson  born. 

1745  .  .  .  John  Jay  born. 

1746  .  .  .  Princeton  College  founded. 

1749  .  .  .  University  of  Pennsylvania  founded. 

1750  .  .  .  Franklin:   "  Hypothesis  for  Explaining   the  Several   Phe- 

nomena of  Thunder  Gusts ;  Opinions  and  Conjectures 
Concerning  the  Properties  and  Effects  of  the  Electrical 
Matter." 

1751  .  .  .  James  Madison  born. 

1752  .   .   .  Gouverneur  Morris  born. 

1754  .   .   .  Jonathan  Edwards :  "  Freedom  of  the  Will." 

King's  College  founded  —  now  Columbia  College. 

1757  .   .   .  Alexander  Hamilton  born. 

1758  .   .   .  Franklin:  "  Father  Abraham's  Speech." 

Jonathan  Edwards  died. 

1762   .   .   .  Mrs.  Rowson  born. 

1764  .   .   .  College  of  Rhode  Island  founded  —  now  Brown. 


A   BRIEF   CHRONOLOGY  237 

1769  .  .  .  Dartmouth  College  founded. 

1771   .   .   .  Franklin:  First  five  chapters  of  "  Autobiography  "  written. 
Charles  Brockden  Brown  born. 

1776  .   .   .  Jefferson:  "The  Declaration  of  Independence." 
Paine  :  "  Common  Sense.1' 

1782  .   .   .  First  English  Bible  published  in  America  (at  Philadelphia). 

Daniel  Webster  born. 

1783  .   .  .  Washington  Irving  born. 

1787  .  .  .  Jefferson:  "Notes  on  the  State  of  Virginia." 

1788  ...  Hamilton  (wfth  Madison  and  Jay)  :   "  The  Federalist." 

1789  .  .  .  Franklin:  "Autobiography"  from  1757  to  1759  (written). 

James  Fenimore  Cooper  and  Jared  Sparks  born. 

1790  .  .  .  Fitz-Greene  Halleck  born. 

Franklin  died. 

1794  .  .   .  William  Cullen  Bryant  born. 

1795  .   .   .  Lindley  Murray :  "  English  Grammar." 

Joseph  Rodman  Drake  and  John  P.  Kennedy  born. 

1796  .  .  .  Prescott  born. 

1800  .  .  .  Daniel  Webster:  "Fourth  of  July  Speech." 
George  Bancroft  born. 

1802  .  .  .  Bowdoin  College  founded. 

George  Ripley  born. 

1803  ...  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  born. 

1804  .  .  .  Hawthorne  born. 

Hamilton  died. 

1806  .   .   .  Noah  Webster:  "Compendious  Dictionary  of  the  English 

Language." 
Nathaniel  P.  Willis  and  William  Gilmore  Simms  born. 

.  T  Henry  W.  Longfellow  and  John  G:  Whittier  born. 
.   .  Bryant :  "  The  Embargo." 

Irving :  "  History  of  New  York  by  Diedrich  Knickerbocker." 

Paine  died. 


238  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

^1809  .  .  .  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  born. 

1 8 10  .  .  ,   Margaret  Fuller  born. 

Charles  Brockden  Brown  died. 

1812  .  .  .  Harriet  Beecher  (Stowe)  born. 

1814  .  .  .  Motley  born. 

1815  .   .  .  Richard  H.  Dana  born. 

1816  .  .  .  Drake:  "  The  Culprit  Fay." 

J.  G.  Saxe  born. 
Gouverneur  Morris  died. 

1^1817  .  .  .  Bryant:  "Thanatopsis"  (in  the  North  American  Review}. 
Thoreau  born. 

1819  .   .  .  Drake  and  Halleck :  « The  Croaker  Poems." 

Herman  Melville  born. 
Irving  :  "  The  Sketch  Book." 

James  Russell  Lowell,  Walt  Whitman,  and  J     P.  Whipple 
born. 

1820  .   .   .  Cooper:  "Precaution." 

Drake  died. 

1821  .   .   .  Bryant:  "Poems." 

Cooper :  "  The  Spy." 
Richard  Grant  White  born. 

1822  .  .  .  Irving:  "  Bracebridge  Hall." 

Ulysses  S.  Grant  born. 

1823  ...  Cooper:  " The  Pilot,"  and  " The  Pioneers." 

Francis  Parkman  born. 

1824  .  .  .  Irving:  "  Tales  of  a  Traveler." 

George  W.  Curtis  born. 
Mrs.  Rowson  died. 

1825  .  .  .  Webster:  "  First  Bunker  Hill  Oration." 

Bayard  Taylor  born. 

1826  .  .  .  Cooper:  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans." 

Jefferson  died. 


A   BRIEF   CHRONOLOGY  239 

1827  ...  Cooper:  « The  Prairie." 

Poe  :  "  Tamerlane  and  Other  Poems." 

1829  .  .  .  Cooper:   "The  Wept  of  Wish-ton-wish,"  and  "The  Red 

Rover." 

Irving :  "  The  Conquest  of  Granada." 
Henry  Timrod  born. 

Poe  :  "  Al  Aaraaf,  Tamerlane,  and  Minor  Poems." 
Jay  died. 

1830  ...  Cooper:  "  The  Water  Witch." 

Webster:  "Reply  to  Haynes." 

1831  .   .   .  Irving:  "  The  Companions  of  Columbus." 

Whittier :  "  Legends  of  New  England." 
Helen  Fiske  (Hunt  Jackson)  born. 

1832  ...  Irving:  "  The  Alhambra." 

Sparks  :  "  Life  of  Gouverneur  Morris." 
Kennedy:  "  Swallow  Barn." 

1833  ...  Longfellow:  "  Outre-Mer." 

Whittier :  "  Justice  and  Expediency." 

Louisa  M.  Alcott  and  Edmund  C.  Stedman  born. 

1834  .  .  .  Bancroft:  "  History  of  the  United  States." 

Jared  Sparks  :  "  Life  of  Washington." 

1835  •'•  •  Simms:  "  The  Yemassee." 

Willis  :  "  Pencilings  by  the  Way." 

Samuel  L.  Clemens  born. 

Kennedy  :  "  Horse-Shoe  Robinson." 

.  .  Emerson:  "Nature." 
Holmes:  "Poems." 
Madison  died. 

.  .  Hawthorne  :  "  Twice-Told  Tales  "  (first  series). 
Prescott :  "Reign  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella." 
Emerson  :  Address  on  the  "  American  Scholar." 
John  Burroughs,  Edward  Eggleston,  and  William  D.  Howells 
born. 

1838  .   .   .  Holmes:  Boylston  Prize  Dissertations  for  1836  and  1837. 
Lowell :  "  Class  Poem." 


240  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

1838  .       .  Poe:  "  The  Narrative  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym." 

Whittier:  "Ballads  and  Antislavery  Poems." 

1839  •   •   •  Cooper :  "  History  of  the  Navy  of  the  United  States." 

Longfellow  :  "  Hyperion,"  and  "  Voices  of  the  Night." 
Bret  Harte  born. 

1840  ...  Cooper:  "  The  Pathfinder." 

R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.  :  "Two  Years  before  the  Mast." 
Poe:  "Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and  the  Arabesque." 
Brook  Farm  Community  established. 

1841  .  .   .  Cooper:  « The  Deerslayer." 

Emerson:  "Essays"  (first  series). 
Longfellow  :  "  Ballads  and  Other  Poems." 
Lowell:  "A  Year's  Life." 
Poe  :  "  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue." 
University  of  Michigan  opened. 

1842  ...  Bryant:  " The  Fountain  and  Other  Poems." 

Cooper  :  "  The  Two  Admirals,"  and  "  Wing-and-Wing." 
-  Holmes  :  "  Homeopathy  and  its  Kindred  Delusions.11 
Hawthorne  :  "  Twice-Told  Tales  "  (second  series). 
Longfellow:  "  Poems  on  Slavery." 
Sidney  Lanier  born. 
Simms :  "  Beauchampe." 
John  Fiske  born. 

1843  .  .   .  Longfellow:  "The  Spanish  Student." 

Prescott :  "  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico." 
Poe  :  "  The  Gold  Bug." 

Whittier :  "  Lays  of  My  Home  and  Other  Poems." 
Webster :  "  Second  Bunker  Hill  Oration." 

1844  •  •  •  Emerson:  "  Essays  "  (second  series). 

Lowell :  "  A  Legend  of  Brittany." 

Margaret  Fuller:  "Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century." 

1845  •   •  •  Lowell:  "Conversations  on  Some  of  the  Old  Poets." 

Poe  :  "  The  Raven  and  Other  Poems." 

1846  .  .  .  Hawthorne:  "Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse." 

Holmes:  "Urania." 

Longfellow :  "  The  Belfry  of  Bruges  and  Other  Poems." 


A   BRIEF   CHRONOLOGY  24! 

1846  .  .  .  Emerson:  "Poems." 

Melville:  "Typee." 

Bayard  Taylor :  "  Views  Afoot." 

Poe  :  «  The  Bells." 

1847  .  .  .  Longfellow:  " Evangeline." 

Melville:  "Omoo." 

Prescott :  "  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru." 

Whittier :  "  The  Supernaturalism  of  New  England." 

1848  .  .  .  Lowell:   "The   Biglow  Papers"   (first  series);   "A  Fable 

for  Critics,"  and  "The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal." 
Poe  :  "  Eureka,  a  Prose  Poem." 
Whipple:  "Essays  and  Reviews." 
Constance  Fenimore  Woolson  and  Hjalmar  Hjorth  Boyesen 

born. 

1849  .  .  .  Emerson:  "Miscellanies." 

Irving:  "Goldsmith." 

Longfellow :  "  Kavanagh." 

Parkman  :  "  The  Oregon  Trail." 

Thoreau  :  "  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers." 

Whipple  :  "  Literature  and  Life." 

Whittier :  "  Voices  of  Freedom.'' 

Poe  died. 

1850  .   .  .  Bryant:  "  Letters  of  a  Traveler." 
\  Emerson  :  "  Representative  Men." 

Hawthorne  :  "  The  Scarlet  Letter." 

Irving :  "  Life  of  Mahomet  and  his  Successors." 

Longfellow  :  "  The  Seaside  and  the  Fireside." 

Donald  G.  Mitchell :  "  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor." 

Whittier :  "  Songs  of  Labor." 

Margaret  Fuller  died. 

1851  .  .  .  Curtis:  "  Nile  Notes  of  a  Howadji." 

Hawthorne :  "  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  "A  Wonder- 
Book  for  Boys  and  Girls." 
Longfellow  :  "  The  Golden  Legend." 
Parkman  :  "  History  of  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac." 
Cooper  died. 

AMER.  LIT.—  1 6 


242  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

-^-1852  .  .  .  Hawthorne:  "The  Blithedale  Romance,"  and  " The  Snow 

Image  and  Other  Twice-Told  Tales." 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  :  "Uncle  Tom?s  Cabin." 
Daniel  Webster  died. 

1853  ...  Curtis:  " The  Potiphar  Papers.'1 

Hawthorne  :  "Tanglewood  Tales  for  Boys  and  Girls." 

1854  .  .  .  Thoreau:  "Walden." 

1855  .  .  .  Irving:  "Life  of  Washington"  and  "Wolfert's  Roost." 

Longfellow :  "  Hiawatha." 
Whitman  :  "  Leaves  of  Grass." 

1856  .  .  .  Curtis:  "Prue  and  I." 

Emerson  :  "  English  Traits." 

Motley:  "The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic." 

1858  .  .  .  Holmes:  " The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table." 

Longfellow  :  "  The  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish." 

1859  .  .  .  Bryant:  " Letters  from  Spain  and  Other  Countries." 

Irving  and  Prescott  died. 

1860  ...  Emerson:  « The  Conduct  of  Life." 

Hawthorne  :  "  The  Marble  Faun." 

Motley  :  «  United  Netherlands." 

Stedman  :  "  Poems,  Lyric  and  Idyllic." 

Whittier:  «  Home  Ballads." 

Holmes  :  "  The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table." 

1861  .   .  .  Holmes  :  "  Elsie  Venner,"  and  "  Songs  in  Many  Keys." 

1862  .  .  .  Pierre  M.  Irving:  "Life  and  Letters  of  Washington  Irving  " 

Thoreau  died. 

-*C  1863  .  .  .  Bryant:  "  Thirty  Poems." 

Hawthorne:    "  Our  Old  Home." 

Higginson  :  "  Out-Door  Papers." 

Thoreau :  "  Excursions." 

Longfellow  :  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn." 

Whittier :  "  In  War  Time." 

Lincoln  :  "  Gettysburg  Oration." 

Holmes  :  "  Soundings  from  the  Atlantic." 


A   BRIEF   CHRONOLOGY  243 

1864  .  .  .  Lowell:  " Fireside  Travels." 

Stedman:  "Alice  of  Monmouth." 
Thoreau:  "  The  Maine  Woods." 
Hawthorne  died. 

1865  ...  Parkman:  "Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World." 

Thoreau  :  "  Cape  Cod." 
Lincoln  died. 

1866  .  .  .  Howells:  "  Venetian  Life." 

Thoreau  :  "  A  Yankee  in  Canada." 
Whittier :  "  Snow-Bound." 
Jared  Sparks  died. 

1867  .  .  .  S.L.Clemens:    "  The  Celebrated  Jumping  Frog." 

Holmes  :  "  The  Guardian  Angel." 

Howells  :  "  Italian  Journeys." 

Lanier:  "  Tiger  Lilies." 

Longfellow  :  Translation  of  Dante. 

Lowell:  "The  Biglow  Papers"  (second  serie;). 

Whittier:  "The  Tent  on  the  Beach." 

Parkman  :  "  The  Jesuits  in  North  America." 

Halleck,  Willis,  and  Timrod  died. 

1868  ...  Louisa  M.  Alcott:  "  Little  Women." 

Hawthorne  :  "  Passages  from  American  Notebooks." 
Longfellow  :  "  The  New  England  Tragedies." 
Whittier:  "Among  the  Hills." 

1869  .  .  .  Aldrich:  "The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy." 

Bryant :  "  Letters  from  the  East." 

S.  L.  Clemens  :  "  Innocents  Abroad." 

Lowell :  "Under  the  Willows,"  and  "The  Cathedral." 

Parkman  :  "  La  Salle." 

Stedman:  "The  Blameless  Prince." 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  :  "  Old  Town  Folks.1' 

1870  .  .  .  Bryant:  Translation  of  the  "Iliad." 

Emerson  :  "  Society  and  Solitude." 

Bret  Harte  :  "  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp." 

Hawthorne:  "English  Notebooks." 


244  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

1870  .  .  .  Lowell:  "Among  My  Books." 

Bayard  Taylor:  Translation  of  the  first  part  of  "Faust." 
Charles  Dudley  Warner:  "My  Summer  in  a  Garden." 
Whitman  :  "Democratic  Vistas." 
Whittier :  "  Miriam,"  and  "  Ballads  of  New  England." 
J.  P.  Kennedy  and  W.  G.  Simms  died. 

1871  .   .  .  Louisa  M.  Alcott :  "  Little  Men." 

Burroughs:  "Wake-Robin." 

Eggleston:  "The  Hoosier  Schoolmaster.'1 

Hawthorne:  "French  and  Italian  Notebooks." 

Higginson  :  "  Atlantic  Essays.1' 

Howells  :  "  Their  Wedding  Journey." 

Longfellow  :  "  The  Divine  Tragedy." 

Lowell :  "  My  Study  Windows." 

1872  .   .   .  S.L.Clemens:  « Roughing  It." 

Holmes  :  "  The  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table." 
Longfellow  :  "  Three  Books  of  Song." 
Charles  Dudley  Warner:  "Back-log  Studies." 
Whittier :  "  The  Pennsylvania  Pilgrim." 

1873  .   .   .  Aldrich  :  "  Marjorie  Daw." 

Bryant :  "  Orations  and  Addresses." 
E.  E.  Hale:  "In  His  Name." 
Howells  :  "  A  Chance  Acquaintance." 

1874  .   .   .  Holmes:  "  Songs  of  Many  Seasons." 

Howells:  "A  Foregone  Conclusion." 

Longfellow:    "Aftermath,"    and    "The    Hanging    of    the 

Crane." 

Motley:  "John  of  Barneveld." 
Parkman  :  "  The  Old  Regime  in  Canada." 
Whittier:  "Hazel  Blossoms,'1  and  "Mabel  Martin." 

1875  .   .  .  Burroughs:  "Winter  Sunshine." 

Emerson  :  "  Letters  and  Social  Aims." 

Higginson:  "Young  Folks1  History  of  the  United  States." 

Longfellow  :  "  The  Masque  of  Pandora." 

W.  T.  Sherman:  "Memoirs." 

Stedman:  "Victorian  Poets." 


A  BRIEF  CHRONOLOGY  245 

1876  .  .  .  S.  L.  Clemens:  "Tom  Sawyer." 

Sidney  Lanier :  "  Poems." 

Lowell :  "  Three  Memorial  Poems." 

Johns  Hopkins  University  opened. 

1877  ...  Burroughs:  "  Birds  and  Poets." 

Parkman  :  "  Count  Frontenac." 
Motley  died. 

1878  ...  Holmes:  "Motley." 

James  :  "  French  Poets  and  Novelists." 

Longfellow :  "  Keramos." 

Tyler:  "A  History  of  American  Literature." 

Whittier:  "The  Vision  of  Echard." 

Emerson  :  Lecture  on  the  Fortune  of  the  Republic 

Bryant  and  Bayard  Taylor  died. 

1879  .  .  .  Boyesen:  "Goethe  and  Schiller." 

Burroughs  :  "  Locusts  and  Wild  Honey." 
Cable  :  "  Old  Creole  Days." 
Howells  :  "  The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook." 
James:  "An  International  Episode." 
Stockton  :  "  Rudder  Grange." 

1880  .  .  .  Aldrich:  "  The  Still  water  Tragedy." 

Cable:  "The  Grandissimes." 

Joel  Chandler  Harris  :  "  Uncle  Remus." 

Holmes:  "The  Iron  Gate." 

Howells  :  "  The  Undiscovered  Country." 

Longfellow  :  "  Ultima  Thule." 

Lew  Wallace  :  "  Ben-Hur." 

George  Ripley  died. 

1881  .  .  .  Burroughs:  "Pepacton." 

Whittier:  "The  King's  Missive." 
Sidney  Lanier  died. 

1882  .  .  .  S.  L.  Clemens:  "The  Prince  and  the  Pauper  T 

F.  Marion  Crawford  :  "  Mr.  Isaacs." 
Howells  :  "A  Modern  Instance." 
Longfellow:  "In  the  Harbor." 


246  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

1882  .  .  .  Lounsbury :  "  James  Fenimore  Cooper." 

Emerson,  Longfellow,  and  R.  H.  Dana  died. 

1883  •  •  •  S.  L.  Clemens:  "Life  on  the  Mississippi." 

Park  Godwin  :  "  Bryant." 
Longfellow :  "  Michael  Angelo." 
J.  Whitcomb  Riley :  "The  Old  SwimminVHole." 
Whittier:  "The  Bay  of  Seven  Islands." 
Holmes  :  "Pages  from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life,11  and  "Medical 
Essays." 

1884  .  .  .  H.  C.  Bunner:  "Airs  from  Arcady." 

Cable  :  "  The  Creoles  of  Louisiana." 
S.  L.  Clemens:  "  Huckleberry  Finn." 
Helen  Hunt  Jackson  :  "  Ramona." 
Higginson  :  "  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli." 
Holmes:  "Emerson." 
Parkman  :  "  Montcalm  and  Wolfe." 
Stockton :  "  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger." 

1885  .  .  .  U.  S.  Grant:  "Personal  Memoirs." 

Howells  :  "  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham." 
Holmes  :  "  A  Mortal  Antipathy." 
Stedman  :  "  Poets  of  America." 
Woodberry  :  "  Edgar  Allan  Poe." 

U.  S.  Grant,  Richard  Grant  White,  and  Helen  Hunt  Jack- 
son died. 

1886  .   .  .  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett :  "  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy." 

Burroughs  :  "  Signs  and  Seasons." 

Lowell :  "  Democracy  and  Other  Addresses." 

Whipple  died. 

1887  ...  Cabot:  "  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson." 

F.  Marion  Crawford  :  "  Saracinesca." 
Holmes  :  "  Our  Hundred  Days  in  Europe." 
McMaster :  "  Franklin  as  a  Man  of  Letters." 
Thomas  Nelson  Page:  "In  Ole  Virginia." 
Carl  Schurz  :  "  Henry  Clay." 
Stedman  :  "  Library  of  American  Literature." 
Mary  E.  Wilkins  :  "  A  Humble  Romance." 
J.  G.  Saxe  died. 


A  BRIEF   CHRONOLOGY  247 

1888  ...  Eggleston  :  "A  History  of  the  United  States." 

Holmes  :  "  Before  the  Curfew." 
James  :  "  Partial  Portraits." 
Lowell :  "  Political  Essays." 
Riley  :  "  Old-Fashioned  Roses." 
Louisa  M.  Alcott  died. 

1889  .  .  .  Burroughs:  "  Indoor  Studies." 

Howells  :  "  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes." 
'  Lodge:  "Washington." 
Roosevelt :  "  The  Winning  of  the  West." 

1890  .  .  .  Holmes:  "  Over  the  Teacups." 

Mahan  :  "The  Influence  of  Sea-Power  upon  History." 
Nicolay  and  Hay  :  "  Abraham  Lincoln." 

1891  .  .  .  Eggleston:   " The  Faith  Doctor." 

Fiske  :  "  The  American  Revolution." 
Garland  :  "  Main-traveled  Roads." 
Howells  :  "  Criticism  and  Fiction." 
Lowell :  "  Latest  Literary  Essays." 
Barrett  Wendell :  "  Cotton  Mather." 
Bancroft,  Lowell,  and  Melville  died. 

1892  .  .  .  Boyesen :  "  Essays  on  German  Literature." 

Fiske  :  "  The  Discovery  of  America." 
Lowell :  "  The  Old  English  Dramatists." 
Thomas  Nelson  Page:  "The  Old  South." 
Parkman  :  "  A  Half  Century  of  Conflict." 
Stedman  :  "  The  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry." 
Trent :  "  William  Gilmore  Simms." 
Whittier  :  "  At  Sundown." 
G.  W.  Curtis,  Whittier,  and  Whitman  died. 
University  of  Chicago  opened. 

1893  .  .  .  G.WT.  Curtis:  "  Orations  and  Addresses." 

Fuller:  "  The  Cliff  Dwellers." 
Barrett  Wendell :  "  Stelligeri." 
Parkman  died. 

1894  .  .  .  Clemens:  "  Pudd'nhead  Wilson." 

Warner:  "  The  Golden  House." 


248  AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

1894  .  .  .  Mary  E.  Wilkins :  "Pembroke." 

Holmes  and  Constance  Fenimore  Woolson  died. 

1895  .  .  .  Fuller:  "  With  the  Procession." 

Howells  :  "My  Literary  Passions." 

Roosevelt  and  Lodge :  "Hero  Tales  of  American  History." 

Stockton  :  "  Captain  Horn." 

Boyesen  died. 

1806  .       .  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  died. 


INDEX 


"A  Good  Word  for  Winter,"  204. 

"A  Half  Century  of  Conflict,"  216. 

"  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merri- 

mac  Rivers,"  187. 
"  Al    Aaraaf,    Tamerlane,    and    Minor 

Poems,"  159. 
"Adam  Bede,"  116. 
Adams,  John,  32. 
Addison,  Joseph,  24,  43,  99,  176. 
"  JEneid,"  70,  130, 170. 
"  Ages,"  72. 
Alcott,  Bronson,  118. 
Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  118. 
Alden,  John,  70,  132. 
Alden,  Joseph,  82. 
Alden,  Priscilla,  70,  132. 
"  Alhambra,"  51,  52,  53,  54. 
Allan,  Mr.,  156,  157,  158. 
Allen,  Prof.  A.  V.  G.,  20. 
"American  Colonial  Literature,"  14,  20. 
American  Critics  and  Essayists,  223,  224. 
"  American  Flag,"  86,  91. 
American  Historians,  233,  234. 
American  Literature,  12,  13,  14,  16,  60, 

68,  234. 
"  American  Literature,"  14,  20,  55,  68,  82, 

109,  123,  137,  154,  169,  183,  193,  209. 
American  Literature  Primers,  14. 
"  American  Men  of  Letters,"  39,  55,  68, 

82,  109,  169,  219,  228. 
"  American  Poets,"  Stedman's,  82,  109, 

137,  154,  169,  183,  209. 
"  American  Scholar,"  97,  109. 
"  American  Statesmen,"  39,  228. 
Americanism,  13,  14,  98,  205. 
"Among  My  Books,"  203,  204. 
"  Among  the  Hills,"  148. 


"  Angels  of  Buena  Vista,"  147. 

"  Annals  of  America,"  170. 

Antislavery  Journals,  198. 

Antislavery  Society,  143. 

"  Antislavery  Tracts,"  Whittier's,  151. 

Appleton,  Miss  Frances,  129. 

"  Arsenal  at  Springfield,"  129. 

"  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,"  Narrative  of,  160. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  154,  176,  202. 

"At  Sundown,"  150,  182. 

Australian  Literature,  12. 

"Autobiography,"  Franklin's,  19,  32,  37, 

38,  39,  44. 
"Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  17, 

176,  178,  182,  202. 
'Autumn,"  192. 

Bacon,  15,  98. 

"  Ballads,"  Longfellow's,  128. 

"  Ballads  of  New  England,"  150. 

Bancroft,  George,  52,  54,  222. 

"  Barbara  Frietchie,"  148. 

"  Barefoot  Boy,"  147. 

"  Battle  Field,"  81. 

"  Bay  Psalm  Book,"  16,  17. 

"  Before  the  Curfew,"  182. 

"  Beleaguered  City,"  128. 

"  Belfry  of  Bruges,"  129. 

"  Bells,"  166,  167. 

"Bells  of  San  Bias,"  135. 

Bigelow,  John,  39,  82. 

"  Biglow  Papers,"  199,  200,  203,  208. 

"  Biography  of  Motley,"  179. 

"Blithedale  Romance,"  117,  118. 

"  Bonhomme  Richard,"  32. 

Bonneville,  Captain,  52. 

Boston  AdvertLer,  171. 


249 


250 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


Boston  Athenceum,  94. 

Boston  Gazette,  23. 

"  Boston  Hymn,"  105. 

Boston  News-Letter,  23. 

Bowdoin  College,  95,  in,  126,  128,  135, 

227. 

"  Bracebridge  Hall,"  49,  50,  51. 
Braddock,  General,  30. 
Bradstreet,  Anne,  17. 
"  Bravo,"  65. 

"  Bread  and  Cheese  Lunch,"  65,  75. 
Breakfast  Table  Series,  176,  177. 
British  Literature,  12,  14. 
Brook    Farm,    98,    109,    113,    117,  224, 

226. 

"  Broomstick  Train,"  182. 
Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  225. 
Brown,  John,  105,  189. 
Bryant,  Dr.,  72. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  54,  65,  66,  68, 

69-82,  84,  91,  92,  93,  95,  102,  125,  128, 

132,  140,  144,  155,  156,  173,  183,  202, 

226,  229. 

"  Building  of  the  Ship,"  130. 
Bunker  Hill  Orations,  222. 
Burgoyne's  Surrender,  31. 
Burial  of  the  Minnisink,  131. 
Burke,  Edmund,  221. 
"  Burns,"  92. 

Burns,  Robert,  140,  141,  147,  148. 
Burroughs,  John,  109,  193. 
Byron,  Lord,  50,  91. 

Cable,  George,  50. 

Cabot,  J.  Elliot,  109. 

Cambridge  University,  134. 

Canadian  Literature,  12. 

"  Cape  Cod,"  192. 

"  Captain,  My  Captain,"  224. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  96,  104. 

Carpenter,  Prof.  G.  R.,  55. 

"  Cassandra  Southwick,"  146. 

11  Cathedral,"  203. 

"  Chamber  over  the  Gate,"  135. 

"  Charlotte  Temple,"  226. 

Chaucer,  u. 

"Chimaera,"  117. 

"  Christus,  a  Mystery,"  134. 

"  Chronicle  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada," 


"  Chronicles  of  the  Renowned  and  An- 
cient City  of  Gotham,"  43. 

"  Chronological  Outline  of  American 
Literature,"  14. 

Clemm,  Miss  Virginia,  160. 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  66. 

Coleridge,  51,  96,  165. 

Colonial  Period  of  American  Literature, 
15-20. 

Columbia  College,  42,  58,  66,  95. 

"  Columbus,"  50,  51,  54. 

"  Common  Sense,"  220. 

"  Companions  of  Columbus,"  51. 

"  Compensation,"  109. 

"  Conduct  of  Life,"  106. 

"  Conquest  of  Granada,"  51. 

"  Conquest  of  Mexico,"  223. 

"  Conquest  of  Peru,"  223. 

"  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,"  214. 

Constitution,  22,  32,  220,  221. 

Constitutional  Convention,  32. 

Continental  Congress,  30. 

Conway,  M.  D.,  123.  {• 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  56  -W^  69, 75, 
76,  78,  83,  89,  93,  95,  112,  140,  155,  156, 
164,  183,  213,  225,  226,  229. 

Cooper  Club,  75. 

Cornwallis,  32. 

"  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  148. 

"  Count  Frontenac,"  216. 

"  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,"  131,  132. 

"  Cowboys,"  62. 

Crisis,  220. 

"  Croaker  Poems,"  84. 

"  Culprit  Fay,"  87,  89. 

"  Cumberland,"  132. 

Curtis,  George  William,  55,  98,  109,  123, 
137,  223,  224,  225,  226,  228. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  Jr.,  17,  226. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  Sr.,  71. 

Dante,  132,  196,  204. 

Dartmouth'  College,  174. 

De  Lancey,  Miss,  59. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  12,  22,  31, 

220. 

-'  Deerslayer,"  53. 
"  Democracy,"  205,  206. 
"  Deserted  Village,"  148. 
Dial,  98,  1 86,  226.  ' 


INDEX 


251 


"Dialogue    between  Franklin  and  the 

Gout,"  37,  38. 
Dickens,  Charles,  48. 
"  Digging  for  Hidden  Treasure,"  38. 
"  Divine  Comedy,"  132. 
"  Divine  Tragedy,"  134. 
"  Dolph  Heyliger,"  49. 
"  Don  Quixote,"  44. 
"  Dorothy  Q.,"  182. 
"  Dragon's  Teeth,"  117. 
Drake,  Joseph  Rodman,  83-92, 102,  229. 
Dryden,  John,  204. 
"  Dutch  Republic,"  Motley's,  223. 

"  Early  Spring  in  Massachusetts,"  192. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  18-20. 

Eggleston,  Edward,  219. 

Eliot,  John,  90. 

"  Elsie  Venner,"  178,  179. 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  105. 

Emerson,  E.  W.,  109. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  13,  54,93-109, 
113, 121, 124, 134, 141, 144,  148,  150,  152, 
155, 156, 171, 174, 179,180,  183, 184, 185, 
186,  189,  192,  193,  208,  226,  229,  234. 

"  Emerson  the  Lecturer,"  109. 

English  Language,  n. 

English  Literature,  10-14. 

"  English  Traits,"  104, 121. 

"  English  Writers  on  America,"  48. 

"  Ephemera,"  38. 

"  Essays,"  Emerson's,  98. 

"  Essays  in  London,"  209. 

"  Essays,  Tales,  and  Orations,"  68. 

"  Essays  to  do  Good,"  18,  23. 

"  Eureka,"  167. 

"  Evangeline,"  129,  130, 131, 132, 148,  230. 

Evening  Post,  75,77,  84. 

"  Excelsior,"  128. 

"  Excursions,"  192. 

"  Fable  for  Critics,"  55,  68,  109,  154,  169, 

183,  199,  200,  201. 

Fairchild,  Miss,  72. 

"  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books," 

193- 

"  Farewell  Address,"  221. 
Farnham,  Charles  H.,  219. 
Farragut,  David  G.,  13. 
"Father  Abraham's  Speech,"  28,  30,  38. 


"  Faust,"  224. 

Federalist,  221. 

"  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,"  223. 

Fields,  Mrs.,  154. 

"  Fire  of  Driftwood,"  130. 

"  Fireside  Travels,"  202. 

Fiske,  John,  219. 

"Flood  of  Years,"  82. 

Folger,  Peter,  22. 

Fort  Duquesne,  Expedition  of,  30. 

"  Fortune  of  the  Republic,"  107. 

"  France  and  England  in  North 
America,"  216. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  13,  18,  19,  21-39, 
40,  41,  44,  52,  54,  58,  69,  77,  93,  94,  95, 
107,  108,  140,  151,  152,  155,  156,  233. 

Franklin,  James,  23,  24. 

Franklin,  Josiah,  22. 

Franklin's  "Autobiography,"  19,  32,  37, 

38,  39,  44- 

"  Freedom  of  the  Will,"  20. 
Free  Press,  141. 
French  Language,  n. 
Frothingham,  109. 
Fuller  Ossoli,  Margaret,  226,  228. 

Gannett,  Mr.,  137. 

Garnett,  Dr.  Richard,  109. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  141. 

"  General  History  of  Virginia,"  16. 

George  III.,  36. 

"George  Eliot,"  115. 

German  Language,  n. 

Gettysburg  Speech,  Lincoln's,  222. 

Godwin,  Parke,  82. 

Goethe,  103,'  105,  224. 

"  Gold  Bug,"  164. 

"  Golden  Fleece,"  117. 

"  Golden  Legend,"  134. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  53,  99,  148. 

"  Gorgon's  Head,"  117. 

"  Grandmother's  Story  of  Bunker    Hill 

Battle,"  182. 

Greek  Literature,  9,  10,  185,  193. 
Greek  Testament,  70. 
"  Guardian  Angel,"  178. 

"  Half  Century  of  Conflict,"  216. 
Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  65,  75,  78,  83-92, 
224,  229. 


252 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


Hamilton,  Alexander,  221,  228. 

"  Hanging  of  the  Crane,"  135. 

Harrison,  Wm.  H.,  31. 

Harte,  Bret,  50. 

Harvard  College,  29,  72,  94,  95,  107,  127, 

171,  174,  185,  195,  196,202,  211,  218. 
Harvard  Commemoration  Ode,  203. 
"  Harvey  Birch,"  62,  64. 
Hathorne,  John,  no. 
Haverhill  Academy,  142. 
Hawthorne,  Julian,  123. 
Hawthorne,    Nathaniel,  50,   59,  95,  98, 

110-123,  124,  126,  128,  129,  132,  141, 

155,  156,  161,  183,  184,  189,  208,  223, 

224,  226,  227. 
Hayes,  R.  B.,  13,  118. 
"  Headsman,"  65. 
"  Heartsease  and  Rue,"  206. 
Hebrew  Literature,  9,  10. 
Heine,  136. 

"  Heroes  and  Hero- Worship,"  104. 
"  Hiawatha,"  131,  132,  148. 
Higginson,  T.  W.,  123,  169,  193. 
"  History  of  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,"  214. 
"  History  of   New    York,    by    Diedrich 

Knickerbocker,"  44,  45. 
"  History    of   the   United   States,"    222, 

223. 

"  History  of  United  States  Navy,"  65. 
Hoffman,  Miss,  44. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  17,  95,  109, 124, 

148,  155,  156,  168,  170-183,  202,  206, 

208,  211,  218,  223,  224,  229,  230. 
"  Home  Ballads,"  147. 
"  Homeopathy  and  Kindred  Delusions," 

174. 

Homer,  79,  165,  171. 
"  Horsehoe-Robinson,"  225. 
"  Hosea  Biglow,"  199,  202. 
"  Hours  in  a  Library,"  123. 
"  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  116,  117. 
Howells,  W.  D.,  55,  118,  123. 
Hudson,  Henry,  15. 
Hugo,  Victor,  105,  136. 
"  Humble-bee,"  102. 
Hutchinson,  Miss,  14. 
"  Hyperion,"  127. 

"  Ichabod,"  147. 

"  Iliad,"  79,  80,  130,  171. 


"  In  the  Harbor,"  135,  182. 
"In  War  Time,"  148. 
"  Independent  in  Politics,"  206. 
"  Indoor  Studies,"  109,  193. 
"  Inscription  for  Entrance  to  a  Wood,"  72. 
International  Novel,  231. 
Ireland,  Alexander,  109. 
Irving,  Peter,  43. 
Irving,  Pierre  M.,  55. 
Irving,  Washington,  40-55,  56,  57,  58, 
60,  66,  69,  76,  78,  79,  83,  87,  93,  95.  99, 

112,    113,    121,    125,    140,    155,    156,    164, 
183,  205,  229,  232,  233. 

Irving,  William,  43. 
"  Ivanhoe,"  60. 

Jackson,  Mrs.  ("  H.  H."),  226. 

Jackson,  Miss  Amelia  Lee,  174. 

Jackson,  Miss  Lidian,  96. 

James,  Henry,  123,  209. 

Jay,  John,  32,  221,  228. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  32,  220,  228. 

"  Jesuits  in  North  America,"  216. 

"  Jonathan  Oldstyle,"  42. 

"Jonathan  to  John,"  203. 

Jones,  John  Paul,  32. 

Jones,  Paul,  64. 

"  Judas  Maccabseus,"  134. 

Junto  Club,  25. 

"Justice  and  Expediency,"  143. 

"  Kavanagh,"  129. 
Keats,  John,  165,  204. 
Keith,  Governor,  220. 
Kennedy,  John  Pendleton,  225. 
Kent,  Chancellor,  65,  66. 
"  Keramos,"  135. 
King  Charles,  66. 
"  King  Robert  of  Sicily,"  134. 
"  King's  Missive,"  150. 
"  Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York," 
44,  45,  54,  55- 

"  La  Salle,"  216. 

Lang,  Andrew,  137,  169. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  224. 

"  Last  Leaf,"  173. 

"  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  56,  63,  64. 

Lathrop,  G.  P.,  123. 

Latin  Literature,  9,  10. 


INDEX 


253 


Lawrence,  Captain,  59. 

"  Lays  of  My  Home,"  146. 

"  Leatherstocking  Tales,"  62,  63,  65,  68. 

"  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,"  49,  113. 

"  Legends  of  New  England,"  144. 

"  Legree,"  227. 

Lessing,  204. 

"  Letters  and  Social  Aims,"  107. 

"  Letters  from  the  East,"  77,  78. 

"  Letters  of  a  Traveler,"  77,  78. 

Letters  of  Franklin,  34,  35. 

"  Letters  on  Literature,"  137. 

"  Library  of  American  Literature,"  14. 

"  Life  and  Letters  of  Fitz-Greene  Hal- 
leek,"  92. 

"  Life  of  Columbus,"  50,  51. 

"  Life  of  George  Ripley,"  109. 

"  Life  of  Goldsmith,"  53. 

"  Life  of  Washington,"  54,  222. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  13,  36,  105,  203,  222, 
225,  228. 

"  Lines  to  a  Waterfowl,"  72,  173. 

Literature  defined,  9-14. 

Literature  of  End  of  Nineteenth  Century, 
229-234. 

"  Literary  and  Social  Addresses,"  55. 

"  Literary  and  Social  Essays,"  109,  137. 

"  Literary  and  Social  Studies,"  123. 

Literary  Center  of  the  United  States, 
83,  229. 

"Little  Women,"  118. 

Local  Short  Story,  50,  232. 

Locke,  John,  24. 

"  Long  Tom  Coffin,"  64. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  54,  70, 
79,  95,  in,  113,  121,  124-137,  141, 
144,  145,  146,  148,  150,  152,  155,  156, 

165,    182,    183,    195,    200,   201,    202,    208, 

227,  229,  230. 

Longfellow,  Samuel,  137. 

Lounsbury,  Prof.  T.  R.,  68. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  13,  52,  53,  54,  55, 
68,  79,  82,  95,  105,  109,  116,  121,  148, 
150,  154,  155,  156,  168,  169,  171,  176, 
180,  183,  193,  194-209,  219,  223,  225, 
229,  230,  233,  234. 

"  Mabel  Martin,"  150. 
Madison,  James,  221,  228. 
Mahomet,  Account  of,  53. 


"  Maine  Woods,"  192. 

"  Marble  Faun,"  118,  120. 

"  Marco  Bozzaris,"  75,  91,  92. 

"  Margaret  Smith's  Journal,"  150. 

Marvin,  Arthur,  55. 

"  Masque  of  Pandora,"  134. 

Mather,  Cotton,  17,  18,  20,  23. 

Mather,  Increase,  17. 

Matthews,  Prof.  B.,  55,  169. 

"  Maud  Muller,"  147. 

Mazzini,  Address  on,  80. 

McMaster,  Prof.  J.  B.,  39. 

"  Medical  Essays,"  177. 

Melville,  Herman,  225. 

"  Memorabilia  of  Socrates,"  24. 

"  Memorable  Proverbs  relating  to  Witch- 
crafts," 17. 

"  Men  and  Letters,"  137. 

"  Michael  Angelo,"  134. 

Military  Academy,  158. 

Milton,  John,  15,  165,  204. 

Minor  Writers  of  America,  220-234. 

"  Minotaur,"  117. 

Montaigne,  98,  103. 

"  Montcalm  and  Wolfe,"  216. 

Moore,  C.  C.,  84. 

"  Morituri  Salutamus,"  135. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  220,  228. 

Morse,  J.  T.,  39,  183. 

Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  65. 

"  Mortal  Antipathy,"  178,  179. 

"Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,"  114, 
184. 

Motley,  John  Lathrop,  52,  179,  223,  228, 

233- 

"  MS.  Found  in  a  Bottle,"  159. 
"  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,"  164. 
"  My  Garden  Acquaintance,"  204. 
"  My  Literary  Passions,"  55,  123. 
"  My  Study  Windows,"  109,  193,  203. 
"  My  Triumph,"  152,  153. 
"  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget,"  164. 

Napoleon,  103. 

"  Narrative  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,"  160. 

National  Academy  of  Design,  75. 

"  Natty  Bumppo,"  62,  63. 

"  Nature,"  97,  113,  184. 

"Natural  History  of  the  Intellect,"  107. 

Naval  Academy,  58,  223. 


254 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


"  Necessary  Hints  to  Those  that  would 

be  Rich,"  38. 

New  England  Courant,  24. 
New  England  Stories,  232,  233. 
"  New  England  Tragedies,"  134. 
New  York,  the  literary  center  of   the 

United  States,  83,  229. 
New  York  Evening  Post,  75,  77,  84. 
New  York  Review,  73,  75,  91. 
New  York  Stories,  233. 
"  Nil  Nisi  Bonum,"  55. 
North  American  Review,  71,  72,  202. 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  209. 
"  Not  Yet,"  79. 

Novels,  International,  231,  232. 
Novels  of  City  Life,  231,  232. 

"  O  Captain,  My  Captain,"  225. 
"  Odyssey,"  79,  80. 
"  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,"  129. 
"Old  Ironsides,"  171,  182. 
"  Old  Regime  in  Canada,"  216. 
"  On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreign- 
ers," 204. 

"  On  a  Peal  of  Bells,"  68. 
"  On  Board  the  Seventy-Six,"  79. 
"  On  the  Human  Understanding,"  24. 
"  Oregon  Trail,"  213,  214. 
Ossoli,  226. 

"  Our  Country's  Call,"  79. 
"  Our  Hundred  Days  in  Europe,"  182. 
"  Our  Old  Home,"  121. 
"  Outre-Mer,"  126. 
"  Over  the  Teacups,"  177,  182. 
Oxford  University,  134. 

Page,  H.  A.,  193. 

"  Pages  from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life,"  177. 

Paine,  Thomas,  220. 

Parkman,  Francis, 95,  208,  210-219,  229, 

233- 

"  Parson  Wilbur,"  199. 
Parton,  James,  39. 
"  Pathfinder,"  63. 
"  Paul  Revere's  Ride,"  134. 
Paulding,  James  K.,  43,  84. 
Peabody,  Miss  Sophia,  113. 
"  Pen  and  Ink,"  169. 
Pennsylvania  Freeman,  143,  197. 
Pennsylvania  Gazette,  25. 


Pennsylvania,  University  of,  29. 

Perry,  Edgar  A.,  158. 

"  Petition  of  the  Left  Hand,"  37. 

Phelps,  Prof.  W.  L.,  55. 

Phillips  Academy,  170. 

Philosophical  Society,  29. 

Pickard,  S.  T,  154. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  in,  118,  121. 

"  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  23. 

Pilgrims,  15. 

"  Pilot,"  56,  64,  65,  89,  164. 

"  Pioneers,"  62,  63. 

"  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World," 

216. 

"  Pirate,"  63. 

Plan  of  Union,  Franklin's,  30. 
"  Planting  of  the  Apple  Tree,"  80. 
Plato,  103. 
Pocahontas,  16. 
Poe,  David,  156. 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  50,  134, 144,  155-169, 

234- 

"  Poems  on  Slavery,"  129,  144. 
"  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,"  177. 
"  Political  Essays,"  206. 
"  Poor  Richard's  Almanack,"  22,  25,  26, 

27,  38,  42. 
Pope,  70,  171. 
Porter,  Miss  Mary,  126. 
Powhatan,  16. 
"  Prairie,"  63. 
Preble,  Commodore,  125. 
"  Precaution,"  60. 
Prescott,  W.  H.,  52,  54,  223,  233. 
Princeton  College,  20. 
"  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table,"  177. 
"  Psalm  of  Life,"  128. 
"  Purloined  Letter,"  164. 

Quarterly  Review,  49. 
Queen  Anne's  Reign,  21. 

"  Ramona,"  226. 

"  Raven,"  165,  167. 

Read,  Deborah,  25. 

"  Reaper  and  the  Flowers,"  128. 

"  Red  Jacket,"  92. 

"  Red  Rover,"  64,  65. 

Religious  writings,  18. 

"  Representative  Men,"  103,  104. 


'NIVERSF 


INDEX 


"  Revenge  of  Rain-in-the-face,"  131. 
"  Richard,  the  Lion-Hearted,"  67. 
Richardson,  Prof.  C.  F.,  14,  20,  55,  68, 

82,  109,  123,   137,   154,   169,  183,  193, 

209. 
"  Rip  Van  Winkle,"  48,  49,  50,  87,  113, 

164,  232. 

Ripley,  George,  224,  226,  228. 
"  Robinson  Crusoe,"  38,  160,  226. 
"  Roundabout  Papers,"  55,  68. 
Rowson,  Mrs.,  226. 
Royal  Society,  29. 
"  Rules  for  Reducing  a  Great  Empire," 

etc.,  31. 

Salem  Witchcraft,  17. 

"  Salmagundi,"  43,  84. 

Sanborn,  F.  B.,  193. 

Saxe,  J.  G.,  224. 

Scanderbeg,  134. 

"  Scarlet  Letter,"  59,  116, 120. 

"  Scotch  Novels,"  60. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  44,  48,  50,  57,  58,  59, 

60,  65,  66,  67,  115,  195. 
Scott,  Winfield,  66. 
Scudder,  H.  E.,  137. 
"  Sea  Tales,"  65,  68. 
"  Seaside  and  Fireside,"  130. 
Second  Continental  Congress,  31. 
"  Self-Reliance,"  109. 
Sewanee  Review,  228. 
Shakspere,  William,  u,  15,  103,  165,  204, 

224. 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  165. 
Short  Story,  232. 
"  Short  Studies  of  American  Authors," 

123,  169,  193. 
Simms,  W.  G.,  225,  228. 
"  Skeleton  in  Armor,"  128. 
"  Sketch  Book,"  48,  49,  50,  51,  53,  54,  56, 

60,  87,  III,  121,  125,  126. 

"  Skinners,"  62. 

"  Skipper  Ireson's  Ride,"  147. 

Smith,  Captain  John,  15,  16,  20. 

"  Snow-Bound,"  148,  150,  230. 

"  Snow  Image,"  114. 

"  Society  and  Solitude,"  106. 

Socrates,  24. 

"  Song  of  Marion's  Men,"  80. 

"  Songs  of  Labor,"  147. 


"  Soundings  from  the  Atlantic,"  177. 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  159,  160. 

Southern  Stories,  233. 

"  Spanish  Student,"  129. 

Sparks,  Jared,  222. 

"  Spectator,"  24,  43,  140,  176. 

"  Speech  of  Father  Abraham,"  28,  30,  38. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  196,  204. 

"  Spy,"  56,  60,  62,  65,  68,  89,  in. 

Stamp  Act,  30. 

"  St.  Clair,"  227. 

Stedman,  E.  C.,  14,  82,  92,  109,  137,  154, 

169,  183,  209. 
Steele,  24,  43,  99, 176. 
"  Stelligeri,"  154,  209. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  123. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  193. 
"  Stout  Gentleman,  The,"  49. 
Stowe,  H.  B.,  116,  226,  227. 
Stowe,  Mr.,  227. 
"  Studies  .n  Bryant,"  82. 
"  Studies  in  Longfellow,"  137. 
"  Succession  of  Forest  Trees,"  193. 
"  Summer,"  192. 
"  Swallow  Barn,"  225. 
Swedenborg,  103. 

"  Tales  of  a  Grandfather,"  195. 
"  Tales  of  a  Traveler,"  49,  50. 
"  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  134. 
"  Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and  the  Ara- 
besque," 161. 
"  Talisman,"  75,  78. 
"  Tamerlane  and  Other  Poems,"  159. 
"  Tanglewood  Tales,"  117. 
Taylor,  Bayard,  224,  225. 
Tennyson,  Lord,  105. 
"  Tent  on  the  Beach,"  148. 
"  Tenth  Muse  Lately  Sprung  Up,"  etc., 

17- 

Thackeray,  William,  49,55,  68,  115. 
"  Thanatopsis,"  72,  73,  82,  125,  173,  202. 
"The  Courtin',"  199. 
"Thirty  Poems,"  79. 
Thoreau,  David    Henry,  95,   184-193, 

229. 

"  Three  Golden  Apples,"  117. 
"  Three  Memorial  Poems,"  205. 
"  Threnody,"  102. 
Ticknor,  George,  195. 


256 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


Timrod,  Henry,  224. 
"Titmouse,"  102. 
Transcendentalism,  98,  109. 
"Transformation,"  118. 
Treaty  of  Alliance,  22. 
Treaty  of  Peace,  22. 

"  True  Relation  of  Occurrences  in  Vir- 
ginia," 16. 

Tucker,  Miss  Ellen,  96. 
Turgot,  36. 

"  Twice-Told  Tales,"  113,  129,  161. 
"  Two  Admirals,"  64. 
"  Two  Angels,"  201. 
"  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  17,  226. 
Tyler,  Prof.  M.  C.,  14,  20. 
"  Typee,"  225. 

"  Uhland,  136. 

"  Ultima  Thule,"  135. 

"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  116,  227, 

"  Under  the  Willows,"  203. 

Underwood,  F.  H.,  209. 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  29. 

University  of  Virginia,  157. 

"  Vanity  Fair,"  115. 

Vergil,  70,  170. 

Victoria,  Queen,  134. 

"  Village  Blacksmith,"  128. 

Virginia,  University  of,  157. 

"  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  200. 

"  Voices  of  Freedom,"  144. 

"  Voices  of  the  Night,"  128,  144. 

"  Voluntaries,"  105. 

"  Voyage  to  England,"  48. 

"  Walden,"  187,  188. 

Warner,  C.  D.,  55. 

"  Washers  of  the  Shroud,"  203. 

Washington,  George,  13,  22,  32,  41,  70, 

81,  130,  205,  221. 
"  Washington,"  Irving's  Life  of,  54. 


"  Washington,"  Sparks's  Life  oJ,  222. 

Watkins,  Mildred  C.,  14. 

Watts,  Isaac,  70. 

"  Waverley,"  59,  60,  63,  115. 

Webster,  Daniel,  52,  221,  222,  228. 

"  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac," 

187. 

Wendell,  Barrett,  20,  154,  209. 
"  Wept  of  the  Wishtonwish,"  65. 
West  Point  Military  Academy,"  158. 
Western  Stories,  233. 
Whipple,  E.  P.,  224! 
"  Whistle,"  37. 

White,  Miss  Maria,  196,  197. 
White,  Richard  Grant,  224. 
Whitcomb,  S.  L.,  14. 
Whitman,  Walt,  224,  225. 
Whittier,  John    Greenleaf,  54,  121,  124, 

138-154,  155,  156,  180,  182,  183,  188, 

197,  200,  208,  229,  230. 
"  Whole  Book  of  Psalms,"  16. 
Williams  College,  71,95. 
Willis,  N.  P.,  224,  225,  228. 
Wilson,  J.  G.,  92. 
"  Wing  and  Wing,"  65. 
"  Winter,"  192. 
"  Wolfert's  Roost,"  53. 
"  Wolfert  Webber,"  49. 
"  Wonder  Book  for  Boys  and  Girls,"  117. 
"  Wonderful  One-Hoss  Shay,"  182. 
Woodberry,  George  E.,  154,  169,  209. 
Woolson,  Miss  C.  F.,  226. 
Wordsworth,  William,  96,  204. 
"  Work  of  Washington  Irving,"  55. 
"Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,"  128. 
"  Wyoming,"  92. 

Xenophon,  24. 

Yale  College,  19,  29,  58,  71,  95. 
"  Yellow  Violet,"  73. 
"  Yemassee,"  225. 


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